


The Oncoming Storm

by lornesgoldenhair



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 09:56:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3524903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lornesgoldenhair/pseuds/lornesgoldenhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Season 8, before Last Christmas. Earth is suffering the ravages of the worst storm in recorded history and Clara suspects an extra-terrestrial reason. But if it’s something alien what’s it got to do with the Doctor and can Clara come to terms with her own personal tempest of feelings when the Time Lord crashes back into her life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

It was all over the news and had been for days. Clara curled on one end of the sofa with her tea and watched the endless coverage with a curious expression. It didn’t seem right somehow. Of course after her various experiences of things being not right in the last few years she did have a fairly low threshold for suspicion, but even so the extreme weather conditions took some explaining.

On the TV in front of her was coverage from all over the country, in fact all over the world. In Africa the sun blazed down hotter than records had ever recorded. In India and Pakistan huge floods had wrecked massive swathes of landscape and left thousands homeless. In South America violent lightning storms set fire to rainforests. Everywhere had its problems, and London? Well London seemed to be getting a bit of everything. For nearly a week now rain had poured, sleet had frozen and snow had fallen. It defrosted and froze again making roads treacherous. The wind whipped round her block of flats and howled across open spaces picking up bins and benches and hurling them across the grass outside her home. Car alarms went off all night and the power flickered. She was amazed she had lights and heat at all.

Weird weather. The Met Office broadcast excitedly over the course of each day as records were smashed and gales blew harder than ever before. Newsreaders cut to reporters standing knee deep in water, rain lashing their faces as they showed pictures of flooded streets and torn up trees. Clara could remember a few bad winters in her time but this went far beyond that. She sipped her tea and pulled a blanket over her knees glad she didn’t have to go outside. She’d stocked up well, the schools were all off and she had no pressing reason to leave the flat. Even if there was a flood she could sit up there quite comfortably, unless it was a flood of biblical proportions she supposed in which case she’d have to ring the Doctor and see if he could beam her out of there in his TARDIS.

The Doctor. She guessed he would still make the long trip to save her if she was drowning in her bedroom, he was still her friend, but she almost didn’t like to ask. For all she knew he was fighting off hordes of aliens attacking Gallifrey or cruising the galaxy with a new companion. Clara’s heart gave a little grumble and stabbed at her chest. A new companion. She wouldn’t blame him, things were so complex between them over the last year what with him changing and Danny and then the lying, not that he knew about her biggest and last lie to him. No, it would do him good to have someone new in tow, someone who just wanted to go on adventures and see planets and didn’t get emotionally torn between doing that and having a boyfriend and a job. She totally got it. But it still hurt a bit to think of him standing at the TARDIS doors pointing out stars to someone new. Or sitting having coffee from a flask looking down over earth. Or…

_Stop that. You let him go for a reason. He’s home, he’s happy. Let it be._

She looked back at the TV to the image of gigantic trees in America being ripped up by their roots and cast into the sea miles away. Definitely weird. Definitely a slight sense of panic to the newscaster’s voice now. The storms had been expected to settle in a few days not get worse. It was like an alien force was…

_Stop it with the aliens. Not everything is aliens._

She watched the trees bob in the churning water.

_Must be aliens. It’s like when the Moon was hatching and the tides went crazy and there were storms…_

Clara raised her mug to her lips and then pressed it against her chin thoughtfully. It was quite similar, but the Moon-Egg wasn’t due to hatch for another 40 years or so. Unless it had decided to come early? No, not the Moon-Egg. But something equally big? Some other force. What could it be? Who or what could be tampering with the planet now?

She lowered the mug again. Where was the Doctor when you needed him? Oh that’s right taking care of his own planet’s problems for once. There was a bang and the lights went out, the TV dying a second later. Clara puffed air through her lips miserably. Great, this was going to be a long day with no electrics. It was so dark outside all the time at the moment that even in the middle of the day there wasn’t enough light to read by so she would be forced to just sit. And think. The thinking bit was the hardest. Not having anything to keep her occupied let her mind wander to places she was really trying so hard to forget about. Like how the last time the sky had been so dark it was raining Cybermen Ash onto the country.

Clara leaned forward and put her mug on the coffee table. She was not going to let herself go down that line of thinking again. About Danny and the day he died. And the second time he died.

_But he was already dead._

_Yeah and then you had to watch him sacrifice himself in the sky._

_Oh and then of course he’d decided not to come back when he had the chance._

_So that makes three times. Couldn’t just die once, had to go three times._

Three times lost. Three times she’d had to let him go in one way or another, three times she’d grieved a different grief. How was anyone supposed to deal with that? Oh they’d set up support groups for those effected by the Cybermen incident, those with loved ones reanimated, whose bodies were never found, whose ash was distributed across the country. But Danny was different, Danny had remained himself, Danny had had the chance to come back.

Clara got up angrily trying to push her thoughts away with a physical action, and went to the window to watch the storm. There was nothing else to do but watch debris on the wind swirl round the estate. Couldn’t do anything inside, couldn’t go out. She drummed her fingers on the window ledge impatiently and felt the draught wash over her hand, cold and damp. She picked at the peeling paint. Oh God, she was going to go mad.

And then there was a horrible noise.

At first she thought another bin had gone flying and crashed into the bus stop as it had last night, but the noise just got louder and more metallic, a screeching, screaming, crunching noise of metal mangling and tearing. Clara pulled the curtains back a little further and tried to source it but it was so dark, the impenetrable grey of the storm and the rubbish it whipped up obscuring everything. Maybe it was a car? She’d seen them tipping over on the news in places, being dragged down streets by the wind, maybe things had got worse and now her neighbours cars were falling victim to the storm. But the noise sounded bigger than that somehow, and more… more alive, like whatever it was, was hurting. She craned her neck and tried again to see out across the grass.

And then the light of the TARDIS came into view, flickering, moaning with the effort of materialising. Except it wasn’t where it should be on top of the time machine, it was near the ground. Clara squinted against the dark and the fade in, fade out machine. The TARDIS was on its side, lying prone on the ground as it appeared, one door hanging open and half ripped off its hinges and the left hand side which was now serving as its roof battered and torn.

‘Oh my God,’ Clara whispered and without wasting another moment grabbed her keys from the table and ran from the flat.

In the gale outside her voice became lost quickly as she tried to call the Doctor’s name. Clara struggled against the force of the wind and shielded her eyes from the churned up leaves and grit that battered her face. The TARDIS had come to a standstill in front of her and she could see smoke rushing from the open door and immediately being caught up by the wind. Sparks flew across its sides and the light on its roof blinked intermittently, like a dying breath.

‘Doctor!’ Clara was almost at the doors when he came bursting through them himself, unaware of her, staggering forward a few steps and then falling hard to the ground. His jacket was ripped and hands blackened with a sooty substance similar to the smoke belching out of the TARDIS doors. But it was the blood pouring from one side of his face that Clara saw first. He knelt on all fours on the ground, a hacking cough rattling through him as he gasped for clean air. She made it the last few steps and dropped to her knees beside him, instinctively reaching around his shoulders to steady him as he struggled to breathe. The Doctor’s body jerked and he looked up at her through a haze of blood and smoke.

‘Clara!?’

XXXXXXXXXXX

There was no explaining while they were outside the flat, the storm being too violent and too noisy around them, so Clara motioned towards her building and pulled him up to his feet. It was even more obvious when he was standing that he was injured as she slung her arm around his waist and noticed that he did not protest in the least, rather leant into her grateful for the help to support his weight. She had helped him forward a few metres when the TARDIS let out a deafening noise even above the storm. Both of them turned to see her lose her cloak, transforming into the carved silver Gallifreyan cube the Doctor had explained to her previously as being ‘siege mode.’

The TARDIS stood there larger than the police box Clara was used to by several metres, all entrances and exits sealed, no more smoke coming from its interior. The Doctor’s face registered a mixture of emotions, concern, curiosity, panic, pain, before Clara tugged him away. Whatever was happening to the TARDIS, she was just glad it had held out long enough for him to get out. She remembered how he had become trapped before, life support failing, and almost suffocated inside his ship. In her admittedly limited experience the TARDIS was pretty resilient. The Doctor despite his occasionally superior air still needed oxygen and to be not stuck inside a time machine which appeared on the verge of destruction.

Clara kept up the silence until she had him safely in the flat and to be honest it wasn’t hard as he offered no words at all during the long climb up the stairs, the lift being out of power. She helped him down onto the couch and stood regaining her own breath while he leaned back one hand over his face, visibly panting from the exertion and pain. She ran her eyes over him in concern, at once worried about his easy compliance and at the same time relieved because that way he might actually let her look at that gash on his head. She nipped into the kitchen to get Time Lord patching up supplies, thankful that she’d built up such a first aid kit during her time travelling with him.

By the time she returned he was staring rather blankly up at the ceiling but his breathing had come back to something like normal. He flicked his eyes across to where she stood waiting with a bowl of warm water and some medical bits and bobs. His expression was unreadable.

‘Hello,’ she said self-consciously, ‘Um… Welcome back to earth?’

He stared at her for a minute and watched as she shuffled her feet on the carpet.

_So this is awkward._

Something like sadness and longing pooled in his eyes for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitched and he tried to repress a hesitant smile. Clara smiled back and suddenly it broke free of him with a laugh before he winced sharply. ‘Oh Clara, welcome back indeed,’ he conceded, ‘I must say I wasn’t expecting the TARDIS to bring me _here_ … of all places.’

Clara perched next to him, relieved the silence was broken if only on a superficial level. ‘No? Where were you headed?’

‘Into the storm,’ he said simply, ‘Apparently it got a bit rough up there for the old girl.’

Clara looked at him with suddenly bright eyes, ‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed. ‘I knew this storm wasn’t some natural phenomenon!’

‘Of course it isn’t, look at the state of my TARDIS,’ he grumbled and tried to extract some wadding from her hand to tend to his bleeding. Clara batted him away and then pushed on his chest gently to force him back into the cushions of the sofa.

‘Let me,’ she said, ‘Your face is a state. What happened?’

He sighed and relented, looking back at the ceiling while she worked.

‘Didn’t quite reach the eye of the storm, TARDIS got mangled, not entirely sure why her shields didn’t work, interference of some kind. Before I knew it she was spinning in freefall thirty thousand feet. Console exploded, half the room went on fire, she gets grumpy, loses her gravity and chucks me half way across the room…’ he waved the memories away, ‘Bit of a mess really. Ouch!’

Clara swept the cotton wadding over the gash she had been eying up. It wasn’t as deep as she expected and the bleeding was largely stopped so she started to work on removing the drying blood from his cheek and jaw.

‘And now she’s shut herself down,’ he continued, ‘She could sit like that for weeks, moping and repairing and I can’t get back into her,’ his voice sounded oddly lost for a moment and Clara couldn’t help thinking that he sounded a little like a child without his mother. ‘How am I supposed to stop this storm with her offline?’

‘You’ll find a way,’ Clara said, still focused on his injuries, ‘You always do.’

She rinsed the wadding and started on a trickle of dried blood which had run the length of his neck. She tugged back his shirt and wiped where it had pooled in the hollow of his collar bone. He stiffened.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ he said.

‘I know.’

The Doctor was silent, and for a minute he let his eyes close as she cleaned him up. Clara watched him and smiled to herself trying to contain the sheer joy she felt at seeing him again after all these months, even if he had crash landed onto the communal grass outside her flat. Even if he was battered and bruised and smelling of burnt TARDIS. He was still here again and the TARDIS had brought him to her when it hit crisis point. Clara smirked. The old girl didn’t hate her half as much as she made out.

‘Where else are you hurt?’ she asked after a while. The Doctor opened his eyes somewhat reluctantly.

‘There’s nothing serious, I’m not bleeding anywhere else.’

‘You could barely stand when she spat you out,’ Clara said.

‘She did not ‘spit me out,’’ he said indignantly.

‘Yes, she did, she clearly wanted rid of you so she could go siege mode.’

He sighed. And winced. Clara raised an eyebrow at him.

‘Oh all right she jiggled me about pretty violently in there, I’ve probably cracked some ribs, my lower back hurts and I’ll have some extensive bruising to my thigh from where she threw me into the bookcases.’

‘Ouch,’ Clara said. ‘Do you want a hot bath?’

The Doctor glared at her. ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s an apocalyptic storm outside that I need to attend to. And beside your power is out… your water will be cold.’

‘It’s only just gone out there should be enough…’

‘Apocalyptic. Storm,’ he levelled his steel blue eyes at her.

Clara straightened herself and looked at him sternly. ‘Storm has been going on for days, doesn’t look like the world is ending in the next hour or so, more of a slow burn apocalypse. And anyway you can’t fight the apocalypse covered in soot and smelling like burned engine oil.’

The Doctor looked down at his hands, still grimy with smoke. ‘Hmm,’ he conceded.

‘And you hurt,’ Clara said finally, ‘You’re sore and grumpy and not in the best frame of mind for saving the world, so go and have a bath and give me your jacket.’

‘My jacket?’

‘I might be able to fix it where it’s ripped.’

‘Fine,’ he tried to lean forward and shrug out of it but caught his breath quickly between his teeth with a whimper. Clara inched closer and gently pulled the shoulders of the jacket back and down, easing it from his arms and being careful not to hurt him further. He shot her a slightly ashamed but grateful look.

‘You know where the bathroom is,’ she said taking the jacket to the window to peer at it in the limited light, ‘Towels are in the cupboard, take your time…’

‘Clara?’ he said softly from the doorway.

‘Hmm?’ she picked at a ripped seam with her fingernail pulling away a few tattered threads.

‘It’s… good to see you,’ he said. Clara turned to him with a wide smile but before she could reply he had vanished down the hall.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Clara wished the bloody power would come back on and she could make some tea. She didn’t much mind not having tea for herself but she felt possessed with the need to look after the battered Doctor now that he was here. Now that the TARDIS had chosen to bring him back to her. They _needed_ tea, and sustenance and to sit down and discuss how to end the storm, and what was causing it, maybe not in that order. But they needed to get back on track and address the problem.

She could feel the adrenaline already. Once again she had been dragged into another adventure and it was serving only to make her realise how much she had been missing it. There was a mystery to be solved and it was extra complicated without the TARDIS. Maybe UNIT could help? Clara stood by the kitchen counter thinking and tapping various extremities. They didn’t have a TARDIS but if whatever was causing this was within range of earth surely there was something that could take them to it.

Clara glanced at her watch, she had reassured the Doctor that the apocalypse wasn’t coming that morning and she believed that, but she still wanted to talk about it _now._ What was he doing in there anyway? The only time she spent that long in a bath was when she had fallen asleep and turned into a prune in the water.

She snorted. Maybe he was asleep. He’d never live that down. Would he turn into a prune too? Did Time Lord skin do that? He was already wrinkly so maybe it wouldn’t.

She glanced at the hallway and the bathroom door. On the other hand maybe he wasn’t alright, he had been injured after all. Maybe she should check. He could have some awful slow internal bleed or have passed out with concussion from that gash.

Did Time Lords get concussion?

_Oh just go and check._

Clara wandered down the hall listening for sounds of water. It was silent apart from the storm outside.

‘Doctor?’ she called. The door was open, not by much but by a fraction that left a tiny gap. It swung back and forth on the occasional gusty draught. Clara placed her hand on it and pushed lightly, ‘Doctor, are you alright?’ She shielded her eyes against possible Naked Doctor and then peeked through her fingers.

Well he wasn’t in the bath. Clara’s eyebrows knitted when she saw him seated on the old blanket box opposite the bathtub. He was leaning on his elbows, hands over his face, oblivious to her. Clara joined him on the box and patted his thigh, ‘Doctor?’

He flinched.

‘Bruising,’ he said grimly.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Clara withdrew her hand, ‘Are you OK, how long have you been sitting there?’

‘A while.’

The steam in the room suggested he had been in the bath, and now he appeared to have stopped half way through dressing himself. Though his lower half was completed his shirt remained unbuttoned, the cuffs open.

The lights banged on overhead.

‘Oh thank God,’ Clara said looking up at the newly bright bulb. The Doctor didn’t move. She looked back at him and then dropped her eyes to his chest where it was clear that his injuries were rather more dramatic than he had described. She could practically see the bruising coming out before her eyes. Cautiously she hooked a finger round the edge of his shirt and pulled back, chewing on her lip as she spotted the deep violet marks which bore a stunning resemblance to the long hard edges of bookcases. She hissed.

‘I just need a minute,’ he said quietly, trying to close the shirt front and hide the evidence from her eyes.

‘You’re in agony aren’t you?’ she said, ‘I don’t know about cracked ribs, I think they’re pretty broken.’

‘Same thing.’

‘If you weren’t already injured I’d slap you for being stubborn. Is your back like this too? Your thigh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right,’ Clara said more purposefully, ‘Come on, up you get.’ He finally removed his hand from his eyes and peered up at her.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Bedroom.’

He looked at her uncomprehendingly.

‘To lie down,’ she explained. ‘And now we have power I can make tea finally. And while you are lying down you can let your speedy Time Lord metabolism do its thing and start to heal you while we discuss the storm.’

‘Clara…’

‘Come on, like you said it’s going to be more difficult to fix with the TARDIS offline, so we need to think a bit creatively and you can’t do that while you’re like this. Now, can Time Lords take paracetamol?’

‘I suppose if I have no alternative. Vyladian Springbark is really much more effective.’

‘TARDIS pharmacy not available. You can have paracetamol or aspirin.’

‘Aspirin gives me indigestion.’

Clara snorted, ‘Don’t want a Time Lord with a sore tummy, paracetamol it is.’ She turned to the door but was stopped by his voice.

‘Clara wouldn’t you rather stay out of this one?’ he asked quietly, ‘I mean I know she brought me here but it doesn’t mean you have to feel compelled to help me fix this. I know you have different priorities now…’

‘Doctor, there is nothing I would rather do right now,’ Clara looked at him seriously.

‘But…’ and he took a breath the subject clearly uncomfortable but pressing him to deal with it anyway. ‘But after what happened last time, how close you came to losing Danny forever, I’d understand if you just wanted to patch me up and send me on my way.’

Clara looked at him for a long moment before taking a steadying breath of her own. ‘That was the mistake I made the last time I think, sending you on your way…’

‘What?’

‘Danny never came back, Doctor, but I thought it was the right thing to do to let you go back to Gallifrey without me moping around holding you back, so I… sent you on your way,’ she smiled a sad smile, ‘Part of me has regretted it every day since.’

He stared up at her with something like horror in his eyes. ‘Danny isn’t…? He’s gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh Clara, I’m sorry,’ the Doctor looked down at the bathroom floor in silence, his hands linked loosely and dangling between his knees. The room seemed suddenly heavy with quiet, a monotonous drip from a tap ticking like time between them.

‘I…’ the Doctor started, ‘I suppose if we’re having a rare moment of mutual honesty that this might be the time to tell you that Gallifrey is gone too,’ he said at last. He chanced a glance up at Clara whose eyes widened at his confession.

‘Galifrey’s gone?’ she echoed incredulously.

‘Yes,’

‘And you knew this when we met in the café?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you didn’t tell me because…?’

‘Because… of similar reasons to you I suspect.’

Clara continued to stare at him in disbelief and then her expression changed.

‘Dead boyfriend, missing planet, a _complete_ lack of communication between us for all the wrong reasons and an apocalyptic storm outside,’ her laughter came out a little too high pitched and the Doctor raised his eyebrows at her in concern. ‘What’s wrong with us, Doctor? Why are we so hopeless? Why can’t you and I ever just do something simple? Something ordinary and uncomplicated? Why does it always have to be so dramatic and painful and _hard_?’ She grinned at him with equal measures of despair and kindness and shook her head.

The Doctor smiled shyly. ‘I don’t know Clara but I promise you if we solve the apocalypse, we’ll do something ordinary, anything you like, you choose.’

‘I’ll have a think,’ she promised, ‘And we haven’t done with this subject by the way, you don’t get away with it that easily, but this isn’t the time. Now come on, painkillers.’

XXXXXXXX

‘You’re certain you want to do this?’ The Doctor asked.

‘For the last time, yes, I want to help,’ Clara plumped a pillow and stuck it behind his head before he could grumble any further. ‘I’ve missed helping,’ she went on lightly, ‘It was scary at times, often messy, and regularly spectacularly dangerous but I missed it. Anyway you work better when you have someone with you that you can impress with your genius,’ he smirked at her and settled back into the pillow.

‘Well that is true,’ he confessed, ‘But you might have just got used to not risking your life on alien planets and quite rightly wish to decline the invitation to go into the centre of an unnatural storm with a half broken Time Lord.’

‘I invited myself and you’re only a bit broken.’

‘You’re not the one lying here in pain,’ he grumbled.

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ Clara sat back and eyed his bruised chest. The Doctor again pulled the two edges of his shirt together self-consciously.

‘What?’ he asked, ‘Stop looking at it.’

‘Don’t be silly, I’ve seen men’s chests before and anyway I have some oil that might help that,’ she said turning to rummage in one of the drawers of her bedside cabinet.

‘Oil?’ the Doctor said cautiously.

‘Yes, oil, oil for massage. Supposed to help damaged skin…’

‘Damaged _human_ skin,’ he interjected, ‘Not Time Lord skin. Anyway it’s a bit bruised for massage.’

‘I can be gentle!’ Clara protested, ‘It might help.’

The Doctor looked at her warily. ‘Clara I don’t want to be oiled.’

She huffed at him in frustration, ‘Suit yourself, but it is supposed to aid the healing process, see,’ she held up the little bottle which did indeed claim healing properties and then flicked open its cap, ‘Smells nice,’ she said to try and tempt him.

‘I am _not_ being oiled,’ he repeated. Clara rolled her eyes.

‘Take your pills,’ she said irritably. ‘And tell me about the storm.’

The Doctor tossed back the paracetamol she handed him and obligingly swallowed down his tea, relieved to be off the subject of oiling. She seemed oddly enthusiastic about that and well it was inappropriate to say the least. He caught himself glancing at her hands and wondering just how gentle she could be before he got back to the topic in hand.

The Storm.

‘I’ve been circling the planet watching it for the last few days trying to figure out where is coming from,’ he explained.

‘Where have you been?’ Clara said suddenly.

‘What?’

‘Where have you been since the Cybermen? If it wasn’t Gallifrey?’

The Doctor dropped his eyes to his tea, ‘In orbit,’ he said evasively.

‘Orbit of earth?’

‘Yes.’

‘All this time? Didn’t get very far did you?’

‘Nowhere particular to go. I needed time to think. Regroup,’ he admitted quietly.

Clara looked at him sympathetically, at that odd sadness that was back in his eyes and didn’t have the heart to push him on the topic. She filed it away with the one about his missing home planet and his lies for later. At some point they were going to have a hell of a talk. ‘Ok. So you were in orbit, you must have seen how the storm started.’

‘It started like any other weather system, nothing looked out of the ordinary,’ his confident tone resumed. ‘It was only after a few days that I noticed just how many of these weather systems were popping up all over the earth.’

‘Doesn’t usually take you that long to notice something odd like that,’ Clara remarked.

The Doctor glanced at her quickly, ‘Will you kindly stop analysing everything I say. I had things on my mind other than earths weather, I noticed eventually, stop being so critical.’

Clara was taken aback by his defensiveness. ‘Ok… sorry… go on.’

‘Thank you…’ he resumed his tea gazing, ‘So I ran the usual diagnostics, tried to locate patterns, understand what was influencing the climate but everything came back jumbled, none of the data made sense, it was just figures and numbers, no meaning to it.’

‘Something scrambled the signals?’

‘Something did. This isn’t weather at work, Clara, it’s technology. But so far I’ve not been able to work out whose technology or why it’s interfering. What is obvious though is that the effects are getting worse, the climate more unpredictable and that makes me think whoever it is, is aiming pretty high on the scale of potential destruction.’

‘Deliberately tampering with earth’s climate. So definitely not the Moon-Egg, then.’

‘I thought it was the Moon-Egg as well at first,’ he admitted and Clara smiled.

‘You know what they say about great minds,’ she said.

‘And fools…’

Clara batted his arm and he flinched.

‘Honestly is there any bit of you not bruised at the moment?’ she asked.

‘Not much.’

She pouted at him mockingly and he gave her an irritated look.

‘So,’ she went on watching him wriggle against the pillow and try to get comfortable, ‘You decided to head straight to the eye of the storm and investigate?’

‘Seemed like the quickest option once I realised something was wrong. There was one particularly impressive weather system over Europe that appeared more consistent than the others, seemed a reasonable assumption that whatever was controlling the climate sat at the centre of it. I set the co-ordinates and decided to steer manually in case it was a little unpredictable.’

‘Let me guess, it was unpredictable.’

‘Quite. The closer I got to the centre the more it put up a fight, which confirms my theory that the control is sitting in the middle. And it didn’t just wrestle with the ship it played with it,’ his voice barely covered his outrage at the idea of the TARDIS being toyed with, ‘It tormented her, releasing her just long enough for us to almost get away before capturing her again in its cyclones and battering her against rock faces.’

Clara felt a stab of anger as she thought of the machine. It had seen the Doctor through two thousand years safely and she got the impression it had never been as badly damaged as it was now. His ire bubbled just beneath the surface. His ship was hurting, and so he was hurting, and she hated it when he hurt.

‘Did you get close enough to have any idea what it was?’

‘No, I mean almost, but not before the TARDIS was struck by lightning.’

‘The TARDIS doesn’t get struck by lightning, she has shields.’

He glanced at her with a look that said _Keep up_ , ‘As I said, they didn’t work. As well as the scrambled data, half the systems on the ship became scrambled too, whatever it is just sliced right through her defences, the poor old girl even started hitting out at me in her confusion. Quite incredible really, it was so targeted it’s like someone knew she was coming. TARDIS technology is beyond anything most civilisations can throw at it…’

‘So whatever we’re dealing with is…’

‘… as you put it, spectacularly dangerous,’ he finished for her.

Clara fell silent.

‘It knows you’re coming for it,’ she said, ‘That’s how it knew how to deal with a TARDIS, that’s why it played with it, because it could, because it knew how that would make you feel.’

‘Yes I get that impression too,’ the Doctor said. ‘It feels personal.’

Clara felt the muscles in her jaw twitch. Whatever this was had readied itself for him, the Doctor, knowing he would step in the way of the harm it was doing to the planet, and it wanted to do him damage. What’s more it wanted to gloat. That feeling tapped into something deep inside her which she struggled to define, something like a sense of loyalty, something fiercely protective. The Doctor might be the one fighting this particular battle but she and her echoes had long been the ones looking out for him as he fought the war and she was damned if she would let this thing hurt him now.

‘How much time is there?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, it’s been a slow build until now, as though it’s enjoying the show.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Neither do I. Emotionless technology is one thing, something sentient like this, something vengeful, is capricious and impulsive, it reacts emotionally, it can take us by surprise with its irrationality. It enjoys the game.’

‘So what do we do?’

The Doctor looked beyond her into his memories as he answered her, his voice slightly distant and his face dark.

‘This thing thinks it’s can destroy the world and me in it with its tempests,’ he said, ‘But its game playing will be its downfall. It will trip up, it will fail and when it does it will discover that there is a reason why they call The Doctor the Oncoming Storm.’

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Clara got the distinct impression that he was biding his time. The Doctor had spent much of the previous evening deep in thought and she left him to it recognising the particular set of his face and the detached tone of his voice. He was thinking hard, thinking and planning, but also fortifying himself mentally for whatever lay ahead. When she went to check on him later she found that he had drifted off to sleep on her bed, so she tucked the blankets securely round him and retreated to the couch. He needed to heal and she needed to think.

So the Doctor had just reappeared, as though cast from the clouds and she’d thrown herself into whatever was going on with the storm. She’d tended his wounds and given him a place to be while the TARDIS tried to repair itself or whatever it was doing in siege mode. But neither of them had really given more than a cursory acknowledgement to the separation they had endured. And Clara did think that ‘endure’ was the right word. She had suffered these last few months without Danny, without a clear sense of future, and without the Doctor. Now she knew he’d been sitting in orbit, looking down on earth and ‘regrouping.’ He hadn’t been more specific than that but still waters ran deep with him and she knew they would have to address it all at some point. Their friendship, the change he had seen in her, her relationship with Danny, his death, the Master’s death and that bittersweet parting of ways. A parting that had been thick with lies as both she supposed had tried to protect the other.

Currently however she had an injured Doctor, a defunct TARDIS and an apocalypse to deal with.

Clara made more tea and sorted through the multitude of breakfast things in the stockpiled fridge. She hadn’t wanted to starve if she had been snowed or flooded in and now she was grateful for the extra food. She decided she might as well do the full English and set them up for the day. With the TV on in the background showing more hurricane force blizzards in the north of England she set about frying sausages.

‘Why aren’t you humans more concerned about this?’ the Doctor asked from the living room. Clara stuck her head round the door to find him standing in front of the TV, hands in trousers pockets and jacket flared behind him. She’d done quite a good job on the rip even if she did say so herself, the seam blended into the fabric almost as good as new.

‘Brits are obsessed with weather,’ she said, ‘They love watching endless reports about snow and things. It’s probably all the excitement that’s blinding them to the fact that it’s worrying.’

‘Hmm….’ He was still in thoughtful mode.

‘I’m making food,’ Clara said, ‘You should eat. Come through it’s nearly ready.’

The Doctor was still glaring at the screen watching cars slippy slide down icy roads.

‘Doctor!’

He twitched and then caught himself, wincing. Clara stepped forward casting her eyes over the healing gash on his face, less disfiguring than it had been the day before, ‘How’s it all feeling?’

Finally he looked at her. ‘Painful,’ he said rubbing one of his arms distractedly, ‘And stiff, I can barely move. But that’s the least of our problems.’

‘Anything I can do?’

He gave her a warning glance, ‘No I’m sure it will loosen up of its own accord. Why did you let me sleep? If I’d been awake I wouldn’t have seized up.’

‘You needed to sleep, you were injured and traumatised,’ she vanished back into the kitchen.

‘Injured yes…. traumatised is a bit dramatic, I _am_ used to this sort of thing you know.’

‘Your TARDIS is in bits and someone is trying to destroy the earth, you’d had a rough day, even for you,’ Clara started dishing up fried things for them both, ‘Stop arguing, you must have known when you landed here I’d insist you did things like sleep and eat.’

The Doctor gingerly lowered himself into a kitchen chair, flinching forward when his shoulders touched the back of it, the bruising still deep and painful. ‘I still don’t fully understand why she landed here.’

Clara paused mid dish, ‘Don’t you? Because I do.’

He looked at her curiously.

‘Sometimes I wonder if you really are a genius or not,’ she continued ladling baked beans onto the plates, ‘Timeline, echoes, saving your life, watching out for you etc,’ she ran through the list.

‘Oh,’ the Doctor looked at the table, ‘Yes well I suppose it makes some sense, our timelines have… history… you’ve… got me out of a few jams…’

‘Understatement,’ Clara scoffed, ‘anyway that and you’re my best friend,’ she reassured taking a seat at right angles to him and handing him his breakfast, ‘And even the TARDIS knows that you can always come to me… even when your pride thinks you can’t.’

He shot her an offended look, ‘My pride?’

‘Yes, Mr Floating in Orbit for Months. Pride. I think I understand why you didn’t say about Gallifrey but really… you could have. You spend enough time on your own, you didn’t have to vanish completely. God, even a phonecall… it’s me, Doctor, you could have told _me_.’

‘Ok I get your point,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But equally you could have said about Danny. I imagine you’ve been sitting here alone, grieving. I wouldn’t have left if I’d known. I do _care_ , Clara.’

The words stung a little but needed to be said, she could see that. Clara nodded shortly and backed down registering his discomfort. It would do for starters. ‘OK,’ she said shovelling bacon into her mouth, ‘That’s fair I suppose. So tell me Oncoming Storm, what we do now?’

The Doctor picked up his knife and fork and attacked a sausage. ‘I need to get inside the TARDIS,’ he said, ‘Even if she can’t fly right now there may be something useable. If I can fix her even better but we’re a bit tight on time. She’s Plan A…. if I can’t get into her we’ll have to see about Plan B.’

‘Which is…?’

‘Which I’m… working on,’ he replied. ‘Eat up, we’re going to have to brave the elements shortly.’

XXXXXX

That morning’s insane weather consisted of more wind and lashing rain with a smattering of hail just to stir things up a little. Clara stood outside the box shaped silver TARDIS huddled in her coat and trying to ignore the sting of the little frozen pellets beating against her cheeks. The Doctor had his hands on the side of the ship and was leaning into it, his fingertips sometimes tracing the engravings gently as though he was trying to caress ‘her’ into opening up. The rain ran down his face in rivulets and over his closed eyes as he pleaded with her, his jacket was soaked through, his trousers clung wetly to him. Clara was cold enough, he had to be frozen.

‘Can’t you just sonic her open?’ she asked over the deafening wind.

The Doctor glanced sideways at her, ‘Do you think if it was that simple I wouldn’t have done that by now? She’s sentient Clara, she has to be persuaded. She doesn’t know if she’s coming or going at the moment, she’s confused, she’s in pain, she’s not even sure what’s caused all that pain some alien force or me, so she is taking a lot of convincing.’ He looked back at the TARDIS, ‘Poor confused old girl, whoever they are they are going to pay for this. Come on, just let me back in, we’ll fix it.’

Clara looked at him and tried to rub warmth into her hands. There was something terribly moving about him begging his old spaceship to trust him. The one constant in his life she supposed. She drew her jacket around her tighter trying to cut off the biting wind. Well the one constant other than the woman in his timeline, she thought.

_Does he think of me that way? His constant?_

She watched him lean his forehead against the TARDIS and whisper to her. He was so focused that he forgot himself entirely, laying bare the emotions on his face.

_If I shut him out would he beg me like that to let him back into my life?_

The thought shocked her, unsure where it came from or what it signified, but she knew she wanted to mean something to him in the way he meant something to her. She just wasn’t sure what that was.

Clara’s thoughts were stopped in their tracks by the sound of metal tearing. She saw the Doctor take a pace backward and the flat silver surface of the TARDIS shimmer. The circular Gallifreyan symbol pulsed pale blue light and then opened, rolling to one side with a painful screech. Clara stepped forward and peered inside at the darkness of a broken and indistinct console room, while behind her during a tiny lull in the wind she heard the Doctors muttered gratitude.

‘Good girl,’ he said softly and patting the entryway stepped over the threshold. The door slid closed behind them.

Clara squinted round the room aware of a few flying sparks and dim background lighting but little else. She heard the Doctor move to her right, clanking across bare metal and then the green light of his sonic came on like a torch. He twiddled with the settings until its light grew bright enough to illuminate the whole room and propped it against the remains of the central console. He looked around him slowly.

‘Dear God,’ Clara breathed. The room was a disaster. Above them the balcony was completely destroyed, bannisters dangling off the sides of the floor which now lay at a forty five degree angle, its metal crumpled and scuffed. The bookcases were lying on their sides and backs, books strewn over the ground and tumbling like leaves down through the levels below them. Everything was blackened on one side of the room, including what looked like the remains of the Doctor’s leather chair. The smell of burned leather books and oil still hung in the air although the smoke was gone.

Clara picked her way through some debris to the console and cast her eyes over the controls. Many were burned out, wires hung from beneath it sparking together and crackling, beneath that on the floor a strange blue viscous substance seemed to be oozing from the central pillar of the console.

The Doctor followed her line of sight and spotted it, his face registering his alarm.

‘Gooey stuff not a good sign?’ Clara asked.

‘No,’ his voice was grim, ‘Not a good sign at all. It’s part of her core control system, a very rare substance indeed. I have some more somewhere…’ he looked round the ship, ‘But whether or not I can dig it out of all this is another matter, she may not let me through, she might have deleted the storeroom when she began to melt down…’ he trailed off and began clattering his way round the room. Clara wandered to the steps to look at the workspace below and winced. It was largely inaccessible and filled with broken bits of TARDIS and unrecognisable burned things. So far, not so good. She looked round when she heard cursing from behind her and saw the Doctor backing away from the sealed door to the rest of the ship.

‘Won’t let me through,’ he explained briefly, going to have to fix her up a bit before I can even get to the things I need…’ He crouched in front of the console and peered up under it, grimacing, before sitting and dragging his horizontal body under the machine’s core. Clara stood next to his shoulder and waited. It was a pleasantly familiar feeling standing there in the spaceship while the Doctor fiddled under its bonnet like a mechanic fixing a car. Even the clangs and mutterings sounded appropriate.

‘Need any help?’ she asked.

‘This is going to be a long job,’ his voice came muffled from under the metal, ‘Let’s hope the world doesn’t end in the meantime.’

Clara listened but the noise of the wind had been blocked out the minute the doors had shut.

‘It’s a mess under here,’ he continued, ‘Everything is fried. There are levels of exposed tech I don’t even recognise. If I can just get her communicating…’ There was a fizz and a small bang and he cursed again. Clara hugged herself and swung back and forth a little wondering if she should tidy the room best she could or maybe go back to the flat and bring them a flask of tea. Tea currently seemed to be the answer to everything.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a flash and the appearance of a flickering yellow holographic image. Clara stared at the familiar female face.

‘Interface is up,’ she told the Doctor. He slid out from under the console and grabbed at it to haul himself up with a barely concealed grunt of pain. Clara looked down and realised he’d been lying on the torn surface of the metal floor on his already badly bruised back.

The Doctor leaned on the controls and eyed the TARDIS interface. It, or more precisely she, stared back impassively.

‘Welcome back,’ he told it.

‘I have not yet optimised,’ it replied, ‘I require to be in repair mode, you have overridden my automatic hibernation.’

‘Yes, I know, sorry, but it’s an emergency, we need to get you back online, how long until you’re repaired?’

The TARDIS paused calculating. ‘One hundred and three hours, fifty two minutes.’

The Doctor looked at her, ‘Needs to be faster than that, what can I do?’

‘I do not require your input, I can repair in siege mode.’

‘But I can speed that up.’

The TARDIS interface looked at him blankly, ‘It is not required.’

‘It _is_ required,’ he argued, ‘Now, open up your doors and let me get to the storeroom, your oil is spilling all over the floor.’

Again the impassive stare. ‘The Doctor requires repairs,’ it said suddenly turning to Clara, ‘He is not currently fit to pilot.’

His eyebrows furrowed, ‘I am perfectly fit thank you, just a bit knocked about, I can still fly you and I can still fix you.’

‘Repairs require a level twenty two technician, you are not qualified. Your physical and mental state is faulty.’

‘I’ve read every manual on the mark 40 TARDIS there is, I am perfectly well qualified and given I’m the only Time Lord available currently I’m your best bet, faulty or otherwise. Now open the doors.’

Clara was still being stared at by the TARDIS, it was making her uncomfortable. Suddenly the interface turned back to the Doctor.

‘Clara Oswald can repair me, she has the necessary qualifications.’

‘I really don’t,’ Clara said wide eyed.

‘She really doesn’t,’ the Doctor echoed.

‘She is a qualified Mark 40 Technician,’ the TARDIS stated. ‘She must oversee repairs….’ It paused. ‘The Doctor may only assist.’

He rolled his eyes in frustration, ‘You really are insufferable sometimes, how many centuries have I been repairing you, solo? Clara can barely work a sonic never mind delve into your insides.’

The penny suddenly dropped in Clara’s head, ‘She thinks I’m an echo,’ she said leaning into him, ‘She thinks I’m the echo that told you to take her, not the other TARDIS, the one who _was_ a technician on Gallifrey.’

The Doctor looked at her with a mixture of curiosity and realisation. ‘She thinks you… right fine!’ he said cheerfully to the interface, ‘Clara Oswald will oversee. And I believe she will wish to start with what’s under there,’ he pointed under the console, ‘Come on Clara, let’s have a look,’ he nodded at her to get under the control panel. Clara sighed and crawled beneath it, being joined a second later in the tight space by the Doctor.

‘Should keep her happy,’ he whispered a little conspiratorially, ‘Now let me just adjust a few bits,’ he nudged into her as he tackled a stray wire, ‘And she should open the doors and let us get on with things.’

‘And what do I do?’

‘Lie there and think of England?’ The Doctor said from nowhere and Clara snorted only to receive an elbow in her ribs. ‘Shh,’ he warned, ‘She’ll notice.’ Clara clamped her lips together in an effort to repress the laugh that threatened to burst from her chest when he winked at her.

‘I have missed this so much,’ she admitted staring up at the cables he was fiddling with. The Doctor didn’t reply, his teeth clamped around the sonic as he twisted wires together with his fingers. Clara looked over at his profile, so close to her as they lay under the console and at the concentration in his eyes as he worked. ‘Missed _you_ ,’ she corrected not expecting a response but wanting him to hear the words. Instead with the arm nearest her still raised to keep bits of technology in position he reached with his other hand and extracted the sonic from his lips and cocked his head towards her.

‘Feelings mutual,’ he said with a soft smile, and Clara felt something in her chest swell. He held her eye for a beat longer than usual and then returned to the job in hand. ‘Don’t let it go to your head,’ he continued, ‘Here hold this,’ he jabbed the sonic at her, ‘And shut your eyes this might get a bit sparky.’

She heard him tinker, there was another bang and the TARDIS shuddered around them. Clara opened her eyes again and found that the level of light in the console room had gone up significantly and there was the distinctive sound of engines warming and machinery wakening.

‘Excellent work, Clara,’ The Doctor said at volume keeping up the pretence for his machine, ‘Now where to?’ he scooted out from under the console and motioned to her to join him, ‘Storeroom you think, pick up some parts?’

Clara clambered up and was immediately faced with the interface’s cool regard.

‘Yes,’ she agreed hesitantly, ‘Yes,’ more firmly now, ‘Storeroom, oil, repairs,’ she patted the console in a show of camaraderie, ‘we’ll get you fix up in no time you old co…. old girl,’ she corrected.

The TARDIS looked unimpressed but did not argue so the pair turned to find the main door to the rest of the ship had indeed come open at last. It wasn’t until they were through it that Clara heard the interface say something in reply.

‘The Doctor has a fault,’ it repeated, ‘Tend to him.’

‘Ignore her,’ he whispered, ‘She seems to be struggling with the concept of a few bruises today.’

They trudged through the oncoming corridor in silence for a minute. The TARDIS had indeed shut down many of her usual rooms, anything extraneous appeared to be missing and by extraneous Clara noted a distinct lack of comfort and frivolry. The swimming pool, games room and sauna had been wiped. She failed to spot her bedroom and hadn’t come across the wardrobe. The pair split up and wandered separately to make better use of time. Clara noted a number of more ‘essential rooms, the medi-bay and pharmacy being two of them to her relief. Every other remaining room appeared to be made of grey steel and filled with technology or engine parts. To the Doctor’s relief however the storeroom was in one piece and he was able to dig out a barrel of the strange blue oil Clara had seen on the console room floor.

‘The basics are intact,’ he said when they met up again. He had shouldered the barrel and Clara was surprised with this unusual show of strength forgetting for a moment he was in fact a Time Lord and not a human man in his fifties, ‘I was concerned she would just start shutting down randomly but she’s only got rid of the unnecessary bits. Clever girl, always keeps her head in a crisis.’ They began walking back to the console room, the Doctor occasionally shifting the weight of his burden slightly on his shoulder. ‘I should be able to get her up and running sufficiently to get her into the centre of that storm in the next day or so.’

They came back to the console room and he dropped the barrel a little unceremoniously to the ground, reaching back immediately and grasping his spine.

‘The Doctor is…’ the interface began.

‘Yes… yes… faulty… I know,’ he chided.

‘I’ll deal with the Doctors fault later,’ Clara reassured the machine, ‘Let’s get this oil… changed or topped up… or something.’ He rolled his eyes at her.

‘I think you mean exchanged, Clara,’

‘Yes, exchanged, come on chop chop…’ he glared in response to her command. ‘I’m the boss,’ she said smugly. The Doctor pulled himself back under the console and dragged the barrel with him.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

It had been a long day. Clara wasn’t sure if it had been longer for her or the Doctor. He had least had needed to focus his brain on the repairs and such a level of concentration had made the time pass quicker for him. Clara had been on clean up and reassure cranky TARDIS duty. Sweeping and mopping and fixing up the bookshelves had taken hours and then the interface had become suspicious as to why Technician Clara wasn’t supervising the Faulty Time Lord more closely so Clara had been forced to perch on a jump seat near to the console and pretend to watch and critique the Doctor’s complicated TARDIS repairing procedures. This made time pass slowly for her and by late evening she was nodding in the seat, being poked into alertness by one long finger whenever the Doctor passed her way.

As Clara’s watch edged towards midnight she woke to find the Doctor holding her wrist and examining it closely. She looked down and watched its second hand sweep for a few seconds before raising a questioning eyebrow at him. He dropped her wrist.

‘Enough for one night,’ he said by way of explanation.

‘What? I though you wanted to get all this done? I don’t mind, keep going,’ Clara shook herself awake a little more feeling guilty for making the Doctor feel he had to stop to let her weak human constitution rest.

‘No, let’s head back to the flat,’ he said wearily.

‘Don’t pack it in on my account, I can persuade the TARDIS that I trust you to keep on the repairs while I get some sleep.’

He looked at her briefly, ‘Clara…’

Clara slipped off the chair and began to approach the console where the TARDIS interface still hovered looking non plussed. She noticed the holographic image was a little more solidly defined however and had colours to it other than yellow. Clearly progress was being made.

‘Clara, let’s just call it a night,’ he said from behind her more than a little irritation in his tone.

Clara turned her head and cast her eye over him.

‘You look awful,’ she said with sudden realisation, ‘What is it?’

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply.

‘He is faulty,’ the TARDIS supplied and he shot her a withering look.

‘I am tired,’ he told it.

‘You’re never tired,’ Clara said frowning.

‘Sometimes I am,’ he said shortly. ‘Can we just go please,’ he glared at the interface, ‘I’m shutting her down for the night, she can self repair for a while, right boss?’ he looked at Clara who nodded her mock approval and with a flick of some switches the interface dimmed and shut down. The Doctor leaned against the console suddenly slumping. He took one or two fortifying breaths before looking towards the door and heading out into the storm.

He was on her sofa before Clara had even shut the front door. She stood behind him picking debris out of her tangled wind blown hair.

‘Just tired?’ she asked casually.

‘Yes.’

‘You only need an hours sleep a day you had more than that last night.’

‘I’m healing it takes more energy.’

‘Being in pain takes up quite a bit of energy too,’ Clara suggested hanging up her coat. She watched as he shifted in the seat and winced. ‘Come on you’ve been lying on your back in bunched up positions under the console, half way into panels and all sorts all day. It has to be sore.’

‘It’s sore, there are you happy now? It doesn’t matter if its sore, Clara, most of it is done, and tomorrow we can get to the eye of the storm and figure out this thing before there is a disaster.’

Clara perched on the arm of the sofa closest to him and reached out for the collar of his shirt tugging it back a little and exposing the skin of his shoulder. It was the one he had carried the barrel of oil on earlier and clearly the weight and pressure from it had added to the damage already there. The Doctor twitched and snatched his collar back.

‘You need to be as well as possible if we’re flying into the unknown,’ Clara said. The Doctor just closed his eyes and dismissed her. ‘So I found the pharmacy today on the TARDIS,’ he opened his eyes a crack. ‘Got you some of that springbark stuff you mentioned for the pain,’ she rummaged in her pocket and pulled out a little vial.

‘Oh Clara, well remembered,’ he said with genuine gratitude and reached for it. Clara pulled it back out of his grasp.

‘I also go something for the bruising, seeing as my oil wasn’t to your taste,’ the Doctor look at her in puzzlement, ‘according to your textbooks this stuff should promote healing extremely quickly,’ she pulled out another slightly larger vial.

‘What’s that?’ the Doctor said suspiciously.

‘A kind of oil, an alien kind I mean,’ Clara said. He immediately huffed at her.

‘Just give me the springbark,’

‘Not until you let me apply the oil.’

‘I’ve told you I don’t need oiled, I’m not a creaky door.’

‘You are black and blue. If you get into a fight with an alien tomorrow you’re not going to last the distance. Stop being stubborn.’

He glared at her, ‘Fine, but I’ll put it on myself,’

‘And how are you going to do that exactly? You’re battered all the way down your back, I’ve seen the way you flinch every time something touches it. I _heard_ it when you were under the console earlier.’

The two of them stared stonily at each other for a moment.

‘Give me the springbark,’

‘No.’

‘Give it.’

‘No. Take your shirt off.’

‘No.’

‘The TARDIS agrees with me, she helped me find the oil.’

‘Don’t try and gang up on me with my own ship,’ he warned.

‘It’s about the only time we’ve _ever_ agreed,’ Clara went on, ‘You are faulty and she trusts me to make it better.’

He lifted his hands in frustration and let them fall back to the couch before he pushed himself upright and stood over her. ‘What is it with you two? I am not faulty!’

‘Well you won’t be if you let me do this,’ Clara stood to face him. ‘Look at the state of you,’ her hands went to his shirt and she flicked open the top few buttons. The Doctor flapped at her a little helplessly and she went for the vial tipping a small amount of the clear oil into her hand and then pushing her palm flat against his exposed chest. The Doctor hissed, tensed, and then became still. Clara peered up at him.

‘Well?’ she asked, she moved her palm cautiously in a small circle.

‘Um…’ he was looking down at where her fingers met his chest. ‘That actually….’

‘Does it feel better?’

‘It’s remarkable,’ he said with a touch of wonderment, ‘It feels…’ he peeled her hand from him gently and glanced underneath. Clara looked too. The angry violet bruise which had lain across his sternum was noticeably paler where the oil had made contact.

‘Wow!’ Clara exclaimed, ‘That’s actually pretty cool, ‘Ok we need to get more of this on you pronto,’ she reached for his hands and dragged him into the hall before he knew what was happening. ‘Come on.’

In the bedroom she forced him to sit on the edge of the bed.

‘Clara as I said I can do most of this myself,’ he protested edging up the bed away from her when she sat next to him.

‘Shut up, just for once, do as you are told and let me help.’ Clara opened the remainder of his buttons and pulled the shirt edges aside roughly. A blush crept up the Doctors cheeks which made her throat feel tight for some reason but she chose to ignore it. Instead she poured more oil into her palm and rubbed her hands together before placing them over his chest. She held them there a moment before removing them, marvelling as the damaged skin seemed to heal under her touch. Two hand shapes now lay palely amongst the purples and reds of his broken ribs. She was tempted to draw a smiley face. Or maybe a heart with an arrow through it like you would on a steamed up window… Clara smiled at the image.

‘Why are you grinning?’ the Doctor said nervously, an edge of defensive irritation in his tone.

‘Oh nothing… really nothing…’ her hands went back to his chest and this time she smoothed the oil further afield, pushing up until her fingertips met his collarbones and then out towards the tips of his shoulders. In her wake the bruising faded a shade, then another and her smile widened.

‘It’s like magic,’ she said quietly, ‘I just touch you and all the pain goes…’ she looked up at him hesitantly, suddenly aware of the intensity of his eyes and of his parted lips, ‘The pain just goes, right?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said softly, his eyes not leaving hers.

Clara pushed her hands under his shirt and waited, asking permission with her expression. When he gave her a slight nod she pressed further, forcing the shirt to slide down his arms. She smoothed her palms over his shoulders watching as his eyelids fluttered shut at the sensation and repeated the action as the bruising lightened another shade. Gradually his chest healed over. ‘Lie down’ she instructed, ‘On your front, I want to do this properly.’

‘Clara….’ He sounded slightly pained.

‘I know… you don’t do touching and hugging…. This is a medical necessity, think of it like that if it helps,’ she insisted, ‘but let me get on with it please.’ She felt something in her belly twist in anticipation and bit her lip. She could feel her heart tripping in her chest just at the feel of the skin under her hands. It made her nervous, it made her excited in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. In a way she’d only ever felt when she was around him, when they shared those looks and glances, when they worked in synch together, when he would grab her hand and pull her from whichever danger they faced today.

Clara watched as he stretched out on top of her bedcovers, his forehead resting on the backs of his hands. She scooted a little closer and poured more oil into her hands before reaching forward and starting at his shoulders. She drew long gentle swathes down his back, being as careful as she could, mindful of the damage along his shoulder blades and of the deeper bruising at his lumbar spine. The skin there had been scuffed and grazed on impact with something and she took the time to work a little extra oil over the scrapes. Clara heard him exhale softly and apparently unconsciously, a small sigh coming from the top of the bed. She felt suddenly privileged, her Doctor was a prickly soul these days and he certainly didn’t let his guard down with any ease, or in her recent experience at all, but as the skin healed under her touch and her caresses became firmer she felt the tension in his muscles fade.

_Why can’t it always be like this?_

Not wanting to break the spell she refrained from speaking and let him drift under her hands. Clara edged closer to him to find an easier angle and pushed down harder with her fingertips into muscle. She heard a whimper and for a second was concerned she had hurt him before she caught the slight smile on his lips as he turned his head to one side, eyes still closed. That encouraged her on, slowly working along the edges of his broken ribs, applying more oil, wondering how deeply its magic penetrated. Whatever this oil did it seemed to do it well and the discolouration from even these most deeply damaged areas was soon fading. That finished she knew she ought to stop but wasn’t ready yet to break the contact with him so instead she traced patterns across his back in sweeping curves, curve and repeat. Down to the base of his spine and release. Sweeping round his ribs. Curve and repeat. She was in a half dream herself when he shifted a little under her and she snapped back to consciousness.

Clara looked down at her hands and at the almost healed bruising over his back. She tilted her head to one side and looked at the pattern she had left there with the oil, the motions of her fingers having repeated so often that a clear healed line now ran across the muscle. It wasn’t a smiley face or a heart struck by cupids bow.

_C O_

It was her own initials. She quickly covered them with a final sweep of her oil soaked hands her face burning.

Clara leaned forward and quietly turned off the bedside light and as the Doctor emitted a muffled and sleep soaked grunt from beside her, she edged onto the bed with him and lay listening to the wind outside.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

‘I appreciate the gesture, Clara, but you really do need to stop letting me sleep in your bed,’ The Doctor was trotting down the apartment stairs in front of her, on their way to inspect the TARDIS and the repairs it had been making overnight. He was moving considerably easier this morning.

‘You fell asleep,’ Clara argued, ‘You were comfortable, I wasn’t going to wake you and move you and nor was I going to sleep on my sofa. It’s lumpy. And the power keeps flickering and I might have frozen…’ she didn’t sound convincing to herself. The Doctor stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at her as she hurried to catch him. Surprisingly though he acquiesced.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘But in future…’ he tailed off.

‘Yes in future I’ll make the injured Time Lord sleep on the lumpy sofa.’

She received a half smile from him and then he wrenched open the main doors to the flats, struggling a little against the force of the wind outside.

‘It’s getting worse,’ he said, his voice louder above the noise, ‘We need to get a move on.’ Clara looked past him at the destruction that had once been the estate. From the initial gustiness just days before things had deteriorated enormously. When she looked upward she could see gaps in the roofs where tiles had been ripped off, and on the upper floors windows had smashed in the force of the gale. She dropped her gaze and looked in the direction of the TARDIS.

‘Look!’ she pointed past the Doctor who was by now using his whole weight to keep the door from ripping from its hinges. He squinted past her to the time machine and then his face cracked into a wide smile.

‘That’s my girl,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

They stumbled across the grass, Clara hanging onto the Doctor’s arm as best she could for fear the wind might blow all five foot one of her sideways, and reached the doors of the now blue police boxed shaped TARDIS who opened without instruction and let them fall through its entrance. The doors slammed shut behind them and Clara released the Doctor as he spun on the spot surveying the room.

The TARDIS was in considerably better nick than it had been even when they had left it the night before. The console room was approaching tidy and the controls appeared to have been repaired. Clara suspected that the luxuries elsewhere on the ship were still missing but as far as she could make out with her uneducated eye the space and time travelling bits appeared to be intact. The Doctor was already playing with the monitor and scanning devices and Clara heaved a sigh of relief at the normality of that image. Then she laughed at herself for finding an alien tuning his time machine a normal thing. Something else she had missed.

The interface geared up and appeared in three dimensional full colour glory at the heart of the console.

‘Ah, you look better,’ the Doctor commented. The interface actually smiled.

‘You look less faulty,’ it said.

‘Thanks,’ he conceded.

‘Although…’ the TARDIS frowned at him, ‘You are not yet fully…’

‘I’m fine,’ he cut her off quickly with a sharp note and a glare. ‘We have work to do, any residual faultiness can be dealt with later. I’m sure you and Clara will cook something up between you, you seem very good at that.’

The interface looked at Clara who gave it a half smile of guilt.

‘You are not a technician,’ the interface said.

‘I never said I was,’ Clara replied.

‘You mislead me,’ the TARDIS said.

‘She does that sometimes,’ the Doctor said from the other side of the console. Clara smarted at his words. ‘She means well though,’ he went on a little more quietly. ‘If she mislead you she probably thought it was for your own good.’

Clara lowered her eyes a little sadly. He could speak, he was just as bad, just as misleading. He had outright lied, she had just failed to correct his misunderstanding, that wasn’t nearly as bad. She ground her teeth and looked back at the Doctor. The interface swung back to look at him too.

‘What work?’

‘Hmm?’

‘What work is needing to be done?’ it asked.

The Doctor pulled the monitor round so that both Clara and the interface could look at it, despite the interface technically not needing to, it being a part of her.

‘Storms,’ he said, ‘Look at them, all over the world. There’s been twenty feet of snow in Russia. Twenty feet, that’s taller than some houses. And look here,’ he pointed at the screen, ‘Look at the size of this hurricane. It’s getting worse, and we need to find out why, _who_. We need to go back in.’

The interface looked at him incredulously. ‘No,’ it said.

Clara’s gaze switched to the hologram. ‘No?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘I’m not asking,’ the Doctor said levelly.

The interface just looked at him.

‘I said, I’m not asking,’ the Doctor said again, ‘This has to be done,’ he pushed some buttons on the control panel and Clara felt the engines begin to whirr under manual override. Just as suddenly they stopped, their noise echoing softly for a moment before silence descended over the console room again.

‘And I said no,’ the TARDIS said.

‘Look I told you yesterday that this was the plan,’ the Doctor said. ‘You didn’t protest then. What’s with the rebellion?’

‘Yesterday I was incapacitated. Now I am optimized. And this is not logical. We have sustained severe damage at the heart of the storm, we have no protection against it, we cannot go back.’

‘We must.’

‘We cannot.’

‘We must and we are,’ he pulled back on a lever heavily.

The lights shut off leaving only the dim glow of emergency bulbs.

‘No.’

‘I can override you,’ the Doctor said tersely.

‘We will not go.’

The Doctor punched in the co-ordinates for the centre of the storm and watched as they came up on the monitor. ‘You do not get to choose,’ he told the interface as he worked, ‘The number of times you have dragged me across the universe to where you have felt I am needed, well this time it’s my decision. This time I’m telling you where I have to be, and it’s the centre of that storm.’

‘No.’

‘You will do as you are told!’ he rounded on the hologram suddenly, ‘You are a machine and you will do as I tell you.’

Clara swallowed, his anger cutting to her core. She watched as the interface regarded him with pity on its human face.

‘I am more than a machine,’ it said calmly, ‘I am sentient. I feel…’

‘What do you feel?’ he asked disbelievingly.

There was a pause.

‘I feel… fear,’ it said starkly. Clara looked at its face and watched in horror as a holographic tear trickled down its cheek. The Doctor saw it too.

‘You have nothing to fear,’ he told it softening a little, ‘I know you’ve been damaged but… but…We do this all the time, it’s just another…. Thing…. We need to do.’ He pulled a final time on a lever and it spun back to its original position, tugging against him, causing him to fling his arms up in frustration.

‘We cannot go,’ the interface repeated.

‘But why?!’ he cried at it.

‘Because we will die,’ it said, and Clara’s heart felt cold.

XXXXXXXX

‘We are not going to die,’ the Doctor addressed the interface for the tenth time. He was leaning over the console with his head slung low between his hunched shoulders and a worn expression on his face. The holographic woman didn’t even grace him with a reply, folding her arms and resolutely staring past him. Clara finally slid off her seat and went to the doors.

‘We’re not getting anywhere I’m going to make some tea,’ she said.

‘You and your tea,’ he grumbled.

‘Don’t see any better ideas,’ Clara nipped back her stress levels rising. The TARDIS didn’t always do what it was told but it didn’t usually rebel quite so dramatically. It made her nervous and she wanted to clear her head. She clicked her fingers in front of the door and waited. She clicked again. Nothing. Slowly she turned and glared at the interface. ‘You’ve locked us in,’ she accused it.

‘Yes,’ the interface did not deny it. ‘It is dangerous outside, there is a storm.’

‘I know there is I’m trying to fix it!’ the Doctor almost screeched at it.

‘You may be injured if you go outside. You will remain here until it is safe.’

‘It won’t be safe until you let me go into the storm,’ the Doctor said.

‘It is dangerous.’ And with that the interface appeared to grow tired of the circular argument which had occupied the last hour and shut herself off. The TARDIS –Time Lord standoff was on hiatus.

‘Oh for the love of….’ The Doctor pushed his fingers through his hair and growled under his breath. Clara sat on a step and put her chin in her hands. At least it was warm in the TARDIS and the ships enormous weight would mean it wouldn’t blow away in the gale. It could probably survive a flood too like some sort of technologically advanced ark. While the world crumbled outside Clara and the Doctor would be holed up for all eternity in the time machine, the last living reminders of their species….

_I don’t want to be the last of my species._

She remembered the forest and the impending end of the world. How she’d chosen to stay with Danny and the children rather than let the Doctor save her. She remembered the look on his face when she told him that, the way he’d begged her, offered to stay and face death himself. And it hit her.

_He’d do anything for me._

_(except change time to bring back Danny)_

And she’d betrayed him.

_Do you really think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?_

_(but he’d done the next best thing and taken her to heaven)_

Betraying him made no difference. It wouldn’t ever and she knew it. Suddenly knew it. The thought stopped her breath for a moment.

He was _her_ constant. The one thing in her world that never faltered.

_Oh shut up, Clara._

Her thoughts were getting too messy. Her emotions too unreliable. It was because he was back, back stirring up feelings she thought were dead. Dead with Danny and her bow tie version of the Doctor. It would pass. It had to pass. They would settle into their usual rhythm again. She looked back at the Doctor and noticed a change in his posture. He was in think mode again and grumbling quietly to himself. She decided to get up and investigate, it distracted her from herself.

‘… can’t leave the TARDIS, can’t take the TARDIS to the storm…’ he punched buttons for a moment until images of cyclones and rain storms came up on the screen. A few more punches and Clara was looking at advanced weather maps of some sort charting activity all over the world. The Doctor cocked his head and paused his self-diatribe as he read them. ‘Hmm…’

‘Hmm?’ Clara questioned.

‘Yes,’ he clarified, ‘Hmm.’ His fingers traced a pattern of storms converging on London. He switched off the monitor suddenly. ‘Fine,’ he said to the TARDIS, speaking to the air, ‘Have it your way, too dangerous, might die, quite right. We won’t go anywhere.’ Clara stared at him.

‘We won’t?’

‘No, we won’t.’

Her eyes tried to wheedle an explanation from him but he hushed her quickly aware of the TARDIS and her ever present sentience. He motioned Clara to follow him and slid down the hall to a heavy steel door half way to the storeroom. He opened it quickly and bundled her inside.

Clara found herself standing in what she assumed was his bedroom. She glanced round quickly at the sombre setting and the gloomy lighting.

‘What’s going on?’ she hissed at him.

‘You can speak in here Clara, she isn’t observing.’

‘How do you know?’ she asked.

He switched on a light, ‘Because I specifically requested her not to observe me in here, it’s my bedroom, I am entitled to some privacy.’

‘You need a private life to need privacy,’ Clara said trying to keep the atmosphere light. She immediately regretted it as he shot her a tired and rather irritated look.

‘I’m two thousand years old, Clara, there have been plenty of times I’ve had a ‘private life’… in here…’

Clara blushed, the image suddenly hitting her a little too squarely in the chest. What was that feeling anyway, jealousy? Desire?

_Will you just stop thinking about him? Where has this come from anyway?_

The Doctor sat on the edge of his bed and she tried not to see that it was kingsize and apparently covered in dark silver satin. She hadn’t quite expected that either.

‘Anyway my personal life, or lack of it, aside,’ he said, ‘We can talk here.’

‘Right, talk, about storms,’ she said gathering herself.

‘Yes.’

‘You saw something on the screen?’ Clara asked.

‘Yes, the storms that were all over the world? They’re congregating. There are fewer scattered randomly and more cropping up near to each other. If you chart them you can trace spiral arcs all converging on London.’

Clara felt a little pale, ‘All those terrible storms are coming here, all at once?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh my God we have to do something.’

‘No we don’t,’ he said calmly.

‘How can you say that, you’ve seen the damage they’ve done, all over the world, and now it’s all going to come here, all at once, no-one will survive it, it’ll be….’

‘It’ll be the chance we need. I should have realised before when it was toying with the TARDIS. We don’t need to chase it we are part of its game. It will come here for us. We’ve been sitting here the last twenty four hours recuperating and repairing and look what it’s done, it’s started moving. Wait another day or so and it will land on our doorstep. Just don’t tell the TARDIS that or she’ll take off in a panic….’ He sighed, ‘Poor old girl seems to have post traumatic stress.’

‘So this giant storm comes to find us…. Not much use if the TARDIS won’t let us out to face it. Or if she takes off like you said.’

‘Working on that,’ he said. ‘She won’t let me fly her but she won’t stop me investigating from a distance. I just need to use this time wisely. I’m going back to the console room, going to send a couple of probes into the atmosphere see if I can track down what’s at the centre of that storm.’

‘Sounds good,’ Clara skipped back to the door and slung it open.

The TARDIS interface stared back at her arms folded. It looked between her and the Doctor.

‘What are you doing?’ it asked.

‘That’s none of your business,’ the Doctor said coming to Clara’s side.

The suspicious TARDIS hologram pursed its lips. ‘I hope you aren’t trying to find ways out of here. The situation is dangerous. I am protecting us.’

‘We know that,’ Clara said pacifying it gingerly, ‘I’m sorry if we got a bit, you know, snippy… we both are aren’t we…. sorry,’ she nudged the Doctor.

‘Yes?’ he said doubtfully.

‘Yes and we know you have our best interests at heart….’

‘I don’t have a heart.’

‘It’s a thing… a thing people say….’ Clara explained. ‘I guess what I am saying is we know you mean well and want to protect us so we absolutely won’t go against your wishes on this…’ the Doctor glowered at her as she wittered on over emphasising suspiciously and protesting absolutely too much.

The interface stared at her. ‘I accept your apology,’ it said at last but failed to move out of the way. It looked between them again. ‘Why are you in the Doctor’s room? Is your own room no longer suitable? Do you no longer require it? I see he has turned on Privacy Settings. Will you be copulating now?’

‘I… er….’ Clara stumbled. The Doctor glared at the interface with burning eyes.

‘Are you repairing the Doctor’s fault?’

‘What? We… I mean he…’

‘I see,’ the TARDIS concluded, ‘Your room is no longer required I shall delete it,’ and it blinked.

‘Wait… no… I….’

‘Delete completed. I will now let you resume privacy,’ and the interface vanished.

Clara stared at the Doctor. ‘She thinks we’re….what fault? Why does she think… you know?’

He didn’t look at her. ‘Who knows, perhaps her systems are still scrambled,’ he shrugged with affected nonchalance, turning back to the bed and letting the door swing shut. ‘Let her think what she likes, it means we are guaranteed privacy to try and work all this out.’

‘But she thinks we’re….!’

He looked over at her with an unreadable expression on his face but something in his features was both grim and painful. ‘Why does it matter what the TARDIS thinks?’ he cut her off, ‘It won’t damage your public reputation, Clara, no-one will see you with me and jump to embarrassing conclusions about your space dad. Just let her think it for now we can correct her later when the apocalypse is over. Surely you can sacrifice your vanity for that long.’

She gaped at him as he lashed out at her again. Why did he keep doing that? Why was he so defensive? Clara stung at his words but swallowed her retort. ‘She deleted my room,’ she said aware she sounded childish.

‘Well you can stay here, look a bit funny now if you didn’t seeing as we’re an item in her mind,’ he said wearily, ‘I’ll be busy scanning the weather systems anyway so you’ll have the place to yourself.’ She could see the muscles in his jaw twitching, he seemed unsettled, tense.

‘Doctor?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you…. You seem angry?’

‘I’m not angry,’ he replied, his hand on the door, ‘But there is an enormous storm outside that we need to sort out.’

Clara wasn’t quite sure where her next words came from but they fell from her mouth before she could stop them, tumbling forward and halting him in his tracks.

‘And then can we sort us out?’ she asked.

He looked at the ground below him and pressed his lips together before he answered. He didn’t need to query her and she knew, he knew what she meant. What she didn’t expect was his reply.

‘Yes, Clara, I think we need to do that.’

XXXXXX

Clara woke disorientated and rolled to her side, her arm flailing over the satin covers of the Doctor’s bed. The Doctor’s bed. Her eyes shot open and then she remembered. He had left her there to return to the console room and she had just sat down for a minute to think. She must have dozed off. Clara sat up and straightened her clothes and then shuffled to the edge of the bed. Her legs hung over the side, her feet nowhere near the floor. She felt like the Princess and the Pea. Certainly she had a lingering sense of discomfort she couldn’t place, but she doubted somehow that it came from a legume tucked beneath the mattress. She shook her head wondering not for the first time where her thoughts came from.

Clara hopped down and made for the door.

The interface appeared outside and greeted her in the doorway again.

‘Oh!’ Clara exclaimed, jumping.

‘You are awake,’ the TARDIS observed arms folded.

‘Yes. Why are you standing out here?’

‘I am waiting for you.’

‘Why?’

‘The Doctor is still faulty. He requires fixing.’

Clara frowned at the hologram, ‘OK you’re going to have to be a bit more descriptive because I’m really not following. He’s still got some injuries from the crash but they are much better, he’s not as tired, he’s moving well…’

‘Those are not the faults to which I am referring.’

‘Then what?’ The bloody machine was really getting to her now, between her and the Doctor’s irritability she was beginning to feel a bit sensitive.

‘The Doctor has been faulty for many months.’

Clara sighed, ‘If you ask me he’s been faulty for years.’

The TARDIS glared at her. ‘Will you help him?’

‘He doesn’t need my help, not with any ‘faults.’ He’d never admit to having a fault in the first place, his arrogance won’t let him…’ Clara walked through the hologram and started down the corridor.

‘That is why you must help him, he will not ask you himself.’

Clara stopped and turned back to face the hologram. ‘Ask me what?’

‘Ask you to fix the faults.’

Clara raised her hands, ‘Which _are_?’

‘I… don’t understand them… they are… faults…’ the TARDIS interface dropped its eyes and looked ashamed. ‘I am sentient but my emotional range is limited.’

Clara took a step towards the unusually hesitant interface, ‘Your emotional range? There’s something wrong with his emotions?’ she asked cautiously. Her curiosity was peaked now.

‘I… I’m not sure…’

‘You’re linked to him psychically,’ Clara said, ‘What is it you think you feel?’

It looked at her as though trying to find the right words to describe the difficult emotion.

‘His hearts,’ the TARDIS said, its voice confused and sad, ‘They ache.’

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

When she slinked back into the console room she stayed out of sight and crept to the balcony. Below her Clara could see the Doctor was absorbed in the monitor by the console, flicking through readings and maps, tracing patterns in the climate and hunting for the secret at the centre of the storm. He was oblivious to her and that suited her, she needed to watch him.

_His hearts, they ache._

The TARDIS words echoed through her mind as she tried to work out their significance. Over the years and through her echoes she had discovered many layers to the Doctor and more of them than not were painful. Layers of loss, of his family, his home; layers of guilt for the destruction of Gallifrey, for the lives of those all over the universe he sacrificed for the greater good. He had drifted in space for centuries the last of his kind, he had sought companionship with people only to weep over their short human lives. He had denied himself friendship and love to protect himself from further loss. He had held his children in his arms only to live later with the knowledge that every one of them was gone, that he would outlive them all and he could make nothing right.

But something had changed in the last few months according to the interface, something which prompted it to seek Clara’s help.

It had to be. It was gone and with it everything he thought he might have again in his world. He had programmed the co-ordinates and they had not taken him home. He had dared to hope and had those hopes dashed.

‘Pandora’s box,’ Clara said out loud. ‘All the evil was unleashed upon the world and only hope remained. What would happen to man if hope was lost? ’

The Doctor’s head snapped up, his blue eyes landing directly on her. He looked at her for a moment with curiosity before dipping his head again to the console.

‘That’s a little dramatic,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we’re quite at that stage yet, Clara.’

‘Aren’t we?’ Clara asked unsure to what he was referring.

‘No,’ he spun the monitor towards her, ‘I’ve seen what’s at the centre of the storm.’

The storm, of course. She would have to consider the Doctor’s hearts later.

‘Oh?’ Clara moved down the step towards him and looked at the screen. It was trained on the churning clouds which hovered above London and they swirled and rolled for a moment before they parted enough to reveal a glimpse of what lay beneath.

Shining carved silver.

‘But that’s…’ she started. The Doctor turned his face just enough for him to train his gaze on her.

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice absolutely without emotion, ‘They all look the same when they go into siege mode.’

Clara stared at the unfamiliar TARDIS. ‘A Time Lord,’ she said.

‘Apparently.’

‘You don’t think it’s…’

‘Anything is possible,’ he cut her off quickly before she could mention the name, ‘He… she has a habit of coming back when you least expect it. It certainly explains the games the storm played with the TARDIS,’ he began pressing buttons on the console again. Clara watched as the picture zoomed in on the siege mode TARDIS in the sky. ‘We’ll soon find out,’ the Doctor was saying, ‘Every TARDIS has a unique code ,a signal it emits, you can imagine when you have a whole planet full of time lords that the dimensions get a little packed with time machines. We need to keep track somehow, think of it like air traffic control. My TARDIS should be able to pick up the code and recognise it…. Ah… there…’

The image on the screen flickered and then a series of binary codes appeared across the centre. The Doctor’s jaw twitched as he read it, Clara waited impatiently for a confirmation.

‘Well..?’

‘The Master,’ he said tiredly, ‘Back again for another little play date.’

‘How? She died!’

‘Did she?’ he asked, ‘She dematerialised certainly but nothing is beyond her. She’s got access to the same level of technology we have, some of the most advanced anywhere, and she might be barking but she’s also quite the genius when it comes to inventing something new to fit her purpose. Look at that little trinket she gave me to control the Cybermen. Gateway to the afterlife. She could easily have programmed her own defences to convert a lethal beam to something… less lethal.’

‘So she’s still around,’ Clara’s anger suddenly threatened to spill over, ‘The bitch who did that to Danny is still out there and now she’s playing with you… with us?’

‘She’s always played with me, Clara, that’s nothing new. You on the other hand, I suspect that’s just another way of getting to me. She handpicked you for the purpose.’

‘Well she picked the wrong woman,’ Clara growled. The Doctor cast a curious glance at her.

‘You’ve fought a lot of battles in your time Clara but this one is a little out of your league, I advise you to leave her to me.’

‘That’s not how it works!’

‘It is this time,’ he said lowly. ‘I landed here by accident you were never supposed to be involved.’

‘No, I’m not going to just sit back. It was no accident, the TARDIS brought you here, you need me.’

‘The TARDIS crashed, Clara.’

‘Outside my flat. Call it deliberate or fate if you want but it happened. I’m involved, I’m always involved, whether I really choose to be or not because that’s what I do. I’m in your Timeline!’

‘Yes and it doesn’t always end well for you.’

‘It’s a risk I take.’

‘Perhaps you should go back to your apartment,’ he said quietly.

Clara’s eyes widened. ‘What? No! I’m in this for the long haul…’

‘Except you _aren’t_ ,’ his voice was straining to stay level. ‘You made your choice and remained on earth.’

‘I made my choice thinking you had a home to go to, but you didn’t, I let you go because I thought that’s what you wanted. Because you lied to me.’

The twitch in his jaw again.

‘Maybe …. But you were right on one level though,’ he said, ‘You needed your life to be here on this planet.’

‘Danny is gone.’

‘There will be other Dannys.’

Clara saw red. ‘How can you say that? How can you say there will be another of him? There will never be another Danny!’

‘No?’ he raised his eyebrows and spoke with the air of someone who had seen it a hundred times. ‘Trust me there will. Not quite the same but near enough, someone to bond with, raise a family, that’s how it goes Clara, give it time. Regardless of how raw you feel now, it _will_ happen and I will only serve to get in the way of that.’

‘Why are you saying this?’

‘Because I’ve seen it all before,’ he said wearily, ‘I know the pattern. I know about humans and their idea of love.’ Clara riled at his sense of self pity and arrogance.

‘Our ‘ _idea of love_?’ Are we that basic to you, are we incapable of really feeling it in all its glory? How dare you talk about us, about Danny and I, like that?’

‘Danny and you… yes, because that was the epitome of true love wasn’t it? The school teacher and the soldier boy, what a perfect match that was for my impossible girl… he was never good enough, Clara.’ His voice was bitter and Clara resisted the urge to slap him. The old term of affection felt like he had slapped her himself.

‘You’re pathetic,’ she said, ‘Pathetic and avoidant and… repressed. How can you judge me on love when you can’t even show affection to a friend?’

‘Not this again,’ he snapped.

‘Yes, this! This again! Now you know how I feel! You can’t speak to me, deal with me and what happened, so you’re going to ditch me and ride off to war in the clouds with your old enemy.’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that but yes I am going to leave you here and deal with the Master myself,’ he said watching the TARDIS on the screen rotate slowly above them.

‘By yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re impossible!’ she said hotly. ‘What’s the matter with you? You know you can’t just throw yourself into this, not if it’s the Master, you can’t do this alone. And while we’re on the subject of what’s the matter with you, what’s with the attitude?’

‘What?’

‘You’re defensive, irritable…’

‘That’s just me though isn’t it?’ he said blankly, ‘You’ve complained about that since I regenerated. Just like the ‘affection’ thing.’

‘Not like this, it’s different, you’re… prickly, short tempered, you say hurtful things… I… I can’t put my finger on it but I thought we’d got past that, I thought we were OK and now you’re back you seem worse than ever. This isn’t you, you’re a lot of things but you’re not cruel to me.’

‘Well I do apologise for the inconvenience of my temperament now can I please get on with saving the world?’

‘Only if you let me save it too,’ she stood with her arms folded facing him, furious but determined.

The Doctor let out an exasperated sigh. He punched some controls and then made a grumbling noise. ‘Well you’re in luck because she still isn’t letting me open the doors so you’re stuck here. I suppose that means you’re involved for the duration.’

‘Good,’ Clara said shortly. They stood in awkward silence as the Doctor ran some further scans on the Master’s ship. Clara shuffled and tried not to look in his direction, her anger simmering down to a steady boil but no longer threatening to explode. Arrogant bloody…. Once this storm thing was sorted she was going to give him a talking to.

‘I don’t know why you can’t just communicate with me,’ she said eventually, unable to let it lie. He sighed but refused to look up or respond. ‘I mean I’ve finally found out Galifrey wasn’t there, that you’ve been carrying that round with you for months…’ she risked a glance in his direction but he was still focused on the controls. ‘I _do_ know you,’ she said, ‘And I know that you feel a lot more than you let on about things. Would it hurt you to talk about it…?’

‘Actually yes it would,’ he said curtly, ‘It would hurt a lot. Next time your home planet vanishes taking with it almost everyone you’ve ever loved you try bringing it up in conversation and see how you feel.’

Clara’s cheeks burned. ‘I’m just trying to help,’ she muttered.

‘I appreciate that, but I’ve been carrying this, as you put, it for a lot longer than a few months. A bit of talking therapy is not going to do the trick.’ He hit a lever with a bit more force than was needed and continued to avoid her eyes.

‘So you think you’ve dealt with it?’ she asked, ‘You’ve just buried it and moved on.’

‘As best I can, no doubt it will rear its head again in the future but for now, Gallifrey is gone, I accept that, on some level at least. I don’t want to dwell on it. As losses go it’s too vast.’

‘You need to dwell on it,’ Clara said, ‘Because you aren’t OK.’

Finally he looked up at her, ‘I beg to differ, Clara, and I’m the one living in my head right now.’

The words hovered in the air and for a moment there was nothing but silence.

‘What about your hearts?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Your hearts think differently. You’re hurting.’

She felt him narrow his gaze at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘It was something the TARDIS said earlier, when she was on about you being ‘faulty.’ She said, your hearts ‘ache,’ that they had for months. I think that’s why you’re lashing out. Something’s happened in the last few months to hurt you and you can’t deal with it.’

The effect of her words was immediate, the Doctor’s colour rising over his cheeks and his body language becoming immediately uncomfortable. He waved the statement away muttering something about the TARDIS still being scrambled but by then Clara had already seen his awkwardness and the way his eyes darted away from her painfully. He couldn’t meet her gaze at all and not for the first time in the last day or so she felt realisation dawning.

_He hated Danny. He thought he was never good enough for…_

_….my impossible girl._

She took a step forward trying to see more of his face, to read him more easily, to work out if she was going mad.

_He’d lost almost everyone he’d ever loved._

_Almost everyone. But_ not _everyone._

_There had still been someone he loved. Someone to hold on to._

_(Pandora’s box. Only hope remained.)_

_But then he lost them too. When he handed them back to their nice normal life in a nice normal café one day a few months ago._

_(And what was left when all hope was gone)._

Clara’s mouth opened a fraction and she felt her eyes burn slightly with the threat of tears, her throat felt thick and painful.

_Oh God._

‘The TARDIS couldn’t work it out, why you were hurting,’ Clara said, ‘When she said your hearts ache…. it’s not about Gallifrey is it… Doctor…. Look at me… talk to me…’

He raised his head a fraction to look at her, his eyes brilliantly blue and shining with that sadness she had seen in him so often.

‘Clara,’ his voice was a whisper laced with sorrow.

The crash of metal cut off his words and the lights died.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

Only a few seconds of darkness followed but it was enough to disorientate a panicked Clara. The red emergency lights banged on and the TARDIS siren began to wail. The whole ship was shuddering and Clara had to grip hard onto the edge of the console to remain upright as it lurched hard to the left sending the Doctor spinning into her. He smashed into her shoulder but somehow she managed to hang on as he pushed himself back and landed over the controls reaching high up for a lever she hadn’t seen him pull on before.

He grabbed it and yanked, the ship appearing to steady a little and the sirens quieting down a few notches but not vanishing entirely. The red light was still bouncing in waves around the room, landing across his face and casting black shadows in the hollows of his cheeks. But the respite did not last and again the TARDIS shuddered and this time they lurched backwards, both of them losing their grip and being thrown away from the controls. Clara skidded to a halt on her side and crashed into the wall, winded, followed seconds later by the Doctor who slammed into her before quickly moving to shield her with his body.

From what at first she couldn’t see, but as the sirens started blaring again she felt the TARDIS begin to tremble and heard the clatter of falling objects around her at first lightly and then with ringing clanging consistency of metal dropping onto metal. Clara ducked her head under him and pressed her face to his chest as one of his arms came up to shield the top of her head and he buried his own face amongst her hair. She could feel the ship spinning and lost track of which way was up aware only that she was clinging onto the Doctor for dear life and that he somehow had them tethered with his free arm to the nearest bannister. She felt more objects clatter down around them, one or two nicking at exposed parts of her body before there was a horrifying yawning noise above them and she heard something massive tear away.

The Doctor’s body tensed reflexively and he pulled her tighter in against him before the wind rushed from his lungs and the object had struck him squarely across his back. Clara felt the impact through his body and lost her breath for a second time, pulling her face free of his shirt to pant for air, her eyes struggling to take in what was going on around them.

The barely repaired TARDIS was again a scene of utter devastation and just short of their bodies Clara recognised one of the heavy wall panels which had ripped away and landed on them deflected only by the Doctor’s body. When she realised what had hit him she turned quickly back to rouse some response from him but heard him moan into her neck with pain. She glanced up at the console, its lights flickering randomly as the TARDIS tried to control whatever was happening to her without the help of her pilot and Clara realised to her horror that she was alone on this one, the Doctor barely conscious and injured and his ship fighting its own battle to stay intact. She felt it brush against her mind desperately reaching out for some form of guidance.

_Show me what to do._

Clara wasn’t sure if it was her thought or the TARDIS’ but a second later the monitor swung towards her and she squinted to see the picture on it. The siege mode TARDIS of the Master was spinning in the centre of the screen and then as quickly as it had appeared it vanished into nothing. Clara strained against the weight of the Doctor and tried to edge out from under him, her breathing fast and hectic, adrenaline surging through her as the racket around her continued and the ship rattled in distress. Her eyes kept darting back to the screen and now she could see the weather maps the Doctor had been charting before. The storms were lit up in reds and yellows but they were moving fast across the maps, racing each other to meet at the middle, at the epicentre of the unnatural storm. The picture changed again to that of the world directly outside the TARDIS, to the world of her block of flats and the grass outside, but she could barely see anything for the debris and when enough of a space emerged she felt a stone hit her guts as she realised the roof was gone and the torn fibres of the building where billowing back and forth in the turbulence. The image panned and it became clear that the whole area was gradually being levelled by the increasing wind, and that soon it would spread beyond just her little part of London.

Clara finally heaved herself out from under the Doctor and half crawled her way to the console, her knee catching on a sharp edge and blood smearing across the floor. She bit down on her lip and dragged herself up, searching the controls for the one she needed, the one he had pointed out a long time before when they had been recovering from one of their adventures.

_Why didn’t you ever tell me about it before?_

_Things don’t usually get so bad I need to stick her in siege mode, Clara…_

_We’re supposed to be in this together, I should know these things, teach me._

_Fine, look… under here…._

She reached under the edge of the console and found it there, yanking hard.

Immediately the sirens stopped and the lights stopped flashing but remained red. She heard all extraneous systems shut down and the silence was frighteningly deafening compared to the rumpus before. She checked the monitor and found that the TARDIS had altered its settings to protect its integrity best it could, increasing its gravity to fix it hard in place against the tremendous winds outside. It steadied and Clara breathed a temporary sigh of relief.

The groan behind her immediately made her heart leap and she turned to find the Doctor pushing himself up slowly to sit against the destroyed wall behind him. The cut on his face had reopened and a trail of blood now ran down his cheek.

‘Doctor?’ Clara knelt by his side, the blood from her own wound now trickling freely down her shin.

‘Are you hurt?’ he said, his eyes trained on her leg.

‘It’s nothing, it’s just a cut, I’m OK, what about you, half the TARDIS landed on your back.’

‘Yes,’ he gasped, ‘Yes it did rather,’ he looked pale even in the red light and his blood oddly bright.

‘Did it break anything?’ Clara asked.

‘I think my ribs have probably gone again,’ he said slowly, pain clearly pronounced in each word.

Clara rolled her eyes at him ‘You mean you’ve undone all my good work?’ her anger had dissipated a little, she supposed because of the life threatening situation making her grateful he was in one piece. He probably owed a lot to life threatening situations on reflection, they saved him regularly from the brunt of her irritation.

The Doctor experimentally pressed a hand over his ribs and winced. ‘Yes, busted.’ He looked at her sheepishly, ‘Sorry about that.’

‘If you’d wanted another massage all you had to do was ask,’ she chided earning her a warning look.

Reassured he would live to fight another day Clara turned her attention back to the TARDIS whose sentience was still lingering nervously at the outskirts of her mind.

‘She is so going to say I told you so to you,’ Clara remarked, ‘She didn’t want anything to do with this storm and I have to say …. Maybe she was right.’

The Doctor was scrabbling to get up, grimacing as he did so until Clara took him by the arm and helped heave him into position.

‘Other TARDIS is gone,’ she said, ‘It was on the screen and then it vanished. Just sort of popped out of existence.’

‘It didn’t dematerialise?’ he looked at her owlishly.

‘No, wasn’t like a normal TARDIS, it was a pop,’ she affirmed.

‘Hmm.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Hasn’t gone anywhere, we need to be careful,’ the Doctor said making his way painfully back to the monitor. ‘She’s cloaked it rather than travelled, she’s watching us to see what we do next.’

Clara shifted uncomfortably. She was not appreciating being toyed with like prey or watched from afar. She felt vulnerable and the playing field was distinctly uneven. She watched as the Doctor leaned heavily into the controls, his breathing hitching a little, and pressed a few buttons. Images of London and further afield came up across the screen.

‘Oh my God,’ Clara breathed, ‘It’s like she’s trying to steamroller everything….’

‘Yes…’

‘But why Doctor, why is she doing this?’

‘Because she can? He queried, ‘Because she finds it amusing? Because in her mind it makes perfect sense? I don’t know Clara, she’s unstable and has been for centuries, her sense of reason is nothing like ours. It works in her head and that’s all that matters.’

‘But what use is the world to her with nothing in it…? Clara said.

She heard the tiny clank of a heeled boot on metal behind her just moments before she heard the voice.

‘Because if the world is empty my dear, and all of you are gone, he won’t waste his time rushing to your aid. He’ll have nothing left to keep him from me, from where he belongs…’

Missy cocked her head and smiled through blood red lips.

‘Isn’t that right, Doctor, I’m the last piece of home you’ll ever have.’

The Doctor rounded on her his eyes wild with pain and anger. He was still holding his weight against the console leaving him hunched and more vulnerable than usual. Clara glanced quickly between him and Missy who, dressed as usual like a demonic Mary Poppins was advancing on him slowly with each swing of her hips.

‘How did you breach the TARDIS?’ the Doctor growled. ‘How did you get in here?’

‘Oh do you really want to talk about technology at a time like this?’ Missy cajoled, ‘This is a reunion, Doctor, a happy moment, we shouldn’t be speaking about trinkets and time toys now…’

Clara watched as he backed up a step or two edging around the console, his left arm gripping onto it for support.

‘You breached her shields…’

‘Easily done, my dear, I’ll tell you a secret,’ she leaned forward and whispered behind her hand, ‘I’ve got a TARDIS too… they all work the same,’ she closed the gap between them a little more and pouted her lips, ‘Now really there are more important things to discuss.’

He was only half listening to her flirtation, his eyes flicking from side to side searching the room for a solution, taking another step backwards he misjudged the distance between the console and his body causing him to stumble a little. Clara darted forward when she heard him exclaim in pain. Almost as quickly Missy’s hand was clamped around her wrist holding her back with a grip like steel.

‘Back away,’ she hissed through her smile.

‘He’s injured!’

Missy looked back at the Doctor leaning heavily against the console now, panting. ‘Yes he is a little worse for wear,’ she conceded, ‘But we’ll soon get him fixed up. Just as soon as we’re finished… flattening your little planet,’ she finished turning back to Clara with a sunny smile. ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ she released her grip and patted her companionably on the arm.

‘You have always had a rather odd way of getting my attention,’ the Doctor breathed, glancing up at her, ‘I would have thought I made it perfectly clear last time, I’m not interested.’

‘Last time I gave you an army and you were a very ungrateful boy,’ Missy replied her eyes darkening. ‘You got to choose between your silly little human friends and… well… _me_! But you made the wrong decisions. It was hurtful, Doctor, I was _very_ hurt…’

And she sniffed, her voice cracking. Clara looked at her with disgust.

‘This time I’m going to make the choices easier,’ she smiled quickly again, her crocodile tears failing to fall, ‘In that I’m removing the choice. Now now…’ she raised her gloved hands when he looked like he might protest, ‘It’s for your own good. You’ve always been so preoccupied with this planet, I’ve never really understood it, they aren’t _that_ interesting.’

She slinked her way over to him and gestured at Clara, ‘This one’s a pretty little thing but in general they’re boring, and I know how easily you get bored. Remember all the little games we used to play, you and I?’ She stopped just short of him so that he was forced to look down into her eyes, ‘All the things we used to do, used to dream of. We were going to rule the universe you and I, Time Lords together,’ she reached up and touched his cheek, smearing his blood slowly across his face before pulling back and inspecting the tip of the gloved finger. Without warning she placed it in her mouth and sucked never removing her eyes from his. The Doctor looked away, nauseated.

‘We can still do all of those things, Doctor, and really we should. We have the best reasons in the world to now, don’t you think?’

‘What?’

‘Well by now you will have noticed that I did tell a teensy lie the last time we met…. Gallifrey?’ she raised her eyebrows to try to illicit some sort of response from him, ‘Wasn’t where I told you,’ her voice was singsong, ‘Truth is I don’t really know where it is but we could have a lot of fun trying to track it down. Combine our knowledge…’ she took a small device from the folds of her skirts, ‘our technology.’

‘I would never work with you that way,’ The Doctor growled, ‘Even for Gallifrey.’

‘Even for our species?’ she asked, ‘because right now we’re the only two left, shouldn’t we be trying,’ she leaned into him lasciviously, ‘To repopulate?’ And she slowly ran her tongue around the rim of his ear.

Clara felt a hot flush of anger as she watched him shudder, his eyes tightly closed.

‘Why do you think I’m a girly this time?’ Missy skipped back and winked at him. The Doctor looked like he might be sick.

‘Get away from him,’ Clara snapped.

Missy turned slowly, her gaze curious. ‘Oh you didn’t like that did you?’ she smiled, ‘Well it’s time to turn the tables a little. You’ve had more than your share of the good Doctor,’ she looked back at him, ‘Not just one but _two_ of his faces, and all you did was complain about this one. That was very rude, don’t you think Doctor?’ she turned to quiz him, ‘The way she moaned about your wrinkles and your greying hair? I thought it was rather distinguished myself but _her_ , she couldn’t see past it could she, mourning for her man-boy in the bowtie? Oh it smarted didn’t it?’ she placed a finger under his chin and turned his head towards Clara, forcing him to look at her while she whispered in his ear.

‘It burned, knowing she could never love you the way she had before, knowing that you repelled her now. Did it break those hearts of yours over and over? Just how badly did it hurt to tear yourself away from her at last, to let her go?’ her eyes never left his face and she watched in triumph as he lowered his and set his jaw determined not to let the emotion escape. She smiled even as Clara felt the lump form in her throat.

‘ Well you don’t need to worry now, because Missy is here, and Missy has _always_ loved you, always known who you are, what you are, what makes you tick,’ she looked over at Clara’s stricken face, ‘Nice enough girl, but really… never good enough for you, was she. ’

The words echoed in Clara’s head and her anger soared.

_Never good enough._

Never good enough.

_Like Danny._

‘What is it with Time Lords and their sense of superiority!’ Clara exclaimed suddenly, ‘Why do you feel you have the right to judge us!’

‘Because…we are superior deary, very superior. What a silly question.’ Missy laughed at her in disbelief and looked to the Doctor for conformation but he kept his eyes averted, his knuckles white with the effort of keeping himself upright against the console. Missy ignored his pain. ‘Compared to us you humans are so… two dimensional. Little bundles of flesh and bone driven by primitive urges and basic needs. Oh the Doctor isn’t quite so pretty anymore? Well you’d better get yourself another boy toy! You know nothing about life, yours is so brief how can you possibly ever learn. And as for love… ha!’ once again she turned to look at the Doctor, ‘What can they know about that?’ she asked him with amusement.

‘More than you do,’ he answered quietly.

He lunged at her suddenly, one arm coming tightly around her neck while the other spun her and forced her down over the console, he leaned his weight into her and pinned her by the arms. Missy struggled for a brief moment before her laughter rang out merrily.

‘Oh, Doctor, playing rough are you, I could get into that.’ She raised her head slightly and licked her lips, ‘Do you want to punish your wicked, wicked Missy?’

He twisted hard on one of her wrists and she let out a shriek, the device in her hand flying from her and skittering across the floor past Clara.

‘Not fair!’ she cried, ‘It should be me punishing you, you tried to kill me,’

‘Not for the first or last time,’ he growled back wrestling her back when she fought him with a bone cracking strength Clara had never seen him demonstrate before. Missy’s face became pained, her playfulness suddenly gone.

‘It’s too late,’ she spat at him, ‘The Storm will destroy everything, all of them, it’s coming, it’s started already, you might as well give up on their whole pathetic race.’ She struggled against him and successfully freed one arm, quickly taking advantage of it to lever herself into a stronger position and hit out at his injuries. The Doctor crumpled momentarily, stepping back winded. Missy’s eyes lit up at his weakness.

‘As long as there is just one of them left I won’t give up on them,’ he panted.

‘And will the one of them, be her?’ Missy cocked her head at Clara, ‘because right now she’s the only one with any chance of lasting past the next twenty four hours, holed up as she is in your precious TARDIS. Maybe it’s not so much a case of as long as one human lives as, as long as _she_ lives,’ she mocked, ‘does she have a special place in your hearts, Doctor,’ her voice became babyish, ‘Is she the only thing that gives you hope? If I destroy her will you give up… give in at last?’

For just a moment there was silence. The Doctor slowly pushed himself up, his breathing slowing from the harsh pant of distress it had been as he tried to regain control. He coughed and the pain barrelled through him again so that his breath became a sharp inverted scream of agony.

‘Touch her and I will kill you,’ he spluttered and Clara froze when she saw the blood coming from his mouth.

‘Already tried that.’ Missy snapped, ‘failed. Must say you’re not looking so good. Don’t think you’d really be able to take me on. But don’t worry if you die and regenerate _again_ , I’ll love you no matter what face you get this time,’ she shot another horrible look at Clara, ‘Time Lords can do that you see, see past the veil.’

Clara felt hate rise in her.

Missy had left the Doctor’s side and now she paced the room, levelling her gaze at Clara all the way. ‘You really have turned out to be more trouble than I bargained for,’ she said, ‘I thought you were going to be so useful to me…’ Missy sighed, ‘But now you’re just in the way. You outstayed your welcome, Clara, the universe doesn’t need you anymore. _He_ doesn’t need you… he has me,’ she smiled wide, ‘But he won’t see that until you’re gone so…’ she spun on the spot her skirts flaring coquettishly, ‘bye bye Clara,’ and she waved a little wave before stooping to retrieve her device.

Clara’s hand covered hers before she could straighten and the two women locked eyes.

‘He needs me,’ Clara countered, ‘We’re a team. And right now he needs me to help get rid of you,’ Missy’s wolfish smile glinted in the emergency lighting of the TARDIS.

‘Try it,’ she whispered.

‘Gladly.’

‘How?’ Missy challenged. Clara’s eyes flicked down to the device in their hands.

Missy cackled, ‘You have no idea what this device does, Clara. It could turn up the storm, destroy this TARDIS, kill you, me, both of us, _him_ , though of course he always comes back… like me. How would you kill me permanently? Do you think its even possible? You don’t even know the basics and now you want to use my own device against me. You have no way of knowing which button is which, or how it works at all.’

‘I’ll just have to take the risk,’

‘But then you could end up dead, and what use will you be to him then?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’

‘Clara, no,’ the Doctor said quietly from behind them.

‘Shut up I’m dealing with this,’ Clara retorted.

Missy smiled sympathetically, ‘Oh that’s sweet, dying for him, again. Except you forget this time you really would… you’re not an echo now, Clara Oswald.’

Clara glared at her. ‘I know, it doesn’t matter, if it takes you out, it’s worth it. I have to try. For everything you’ve done, to everyone on earth, to me, to Danny. And for everything you want to do to the Doctor, the misery you’d inflict. You want to break him? Give him the guilt of the death of the human race to bear? Live out your sick little fantasy? Make him, what? Father your children? Or maybe you’d just tire of that and kill him?’

She was aware of the TARDIS brushing against her mind.

_I know what to do._

Clara felt it enter her head and send tendrils of warmth down her arms.

_Just let me guide you._

‘You think you can get rid of me that easily, _Missy_ , when I know what you have planned? I will never let you hurt him, never. I was born to save him and I don’t fear that.’

Missy’s gaze wavered.

_Do it._

‘But _you_ should,’ Clara said and with a sudden movement wrenched the device from their combine grip and pressed it hard.

‘No!’

There was a brilliant white light and she heard the Doctor shout behind her. And then there was nothing.

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

The room was so bright that the light shone through her eyelids redly and woke her from a dark place where her dreams had been confusing and felt too real. She had been sitting in a tree house with her best friend, but it wasn’t really her and she didn’t recognise the boy with her. She knew though that they were forming a club, a child’s secret society and her friend wanted her to do something to show she was certain about her membership.

_It’ll only take a second…_

_But it’ll hurt…_

_But only for a moment, it’s worth it…_

_I don’t know, why does it have to be blood…?_

_Because it’s always blood, if it isn’t blood it means nothing._

The knife slide across her palm and that was when the lights shone brighter and Clara woke gasping for air.

She sat up quickly, panting and looked around her, slowly recognising the clean lines of the medi-bay. She looked down at her hand just to reassure herself she wasn’t bleeding and that there was no scar. Another one of _those_ dreams then. She’d had so many since being part of his Timeline, mostly about her echoes, mostly seeing him from afar, but his one she sensed came directly from his memories. Memories of a childhood in another world and of his earliest friend. Clara closed her eyes as her breathing came back to normal.

‘How are you feeling?’ she jumped as the voice cut through her thoughts. The interface was sitting on the edge of the bed opposite hers.

‘I’m… I’m OK I think,’ Clara replied, ‘Why are you here? Where’s the Doctor? What happened? Is he OK?’

‘Which question should I address first?’

‘Just tell me he’s OK.’

‘The Doctor was badly injured,’ the interface said. Clara looked around the medi-bay urgently. ‘Then where is he? Why isn’t he here getting treated, why aren’t you looking after him?’

‘He is receiving the treatment he needs for his physical injuries.’

‘He’ll be OK?’ Clara wished the interface would just tell her what was going on. She remembered some sort of explosion but that was all.

‘He will heal,’ the interface confirmed, ‘physically.’

It slipped off the side of the bed and made its way to Clara, raking its eyes over her and assessing her own welfare.

‘You have stabilised,’ it announced.

‘Good,’ Clara pulled back the covers of her bed and swung her legs out. ‘I need to see him.’

‘Wait,’ something about the interface’s tone made her pause. Clara turned back to it and noticed the troubled expression it wore on its holographic face.

‘You drove away the Master,’ it said.

‘I seem to remember you helping,’ Clara commented smiling, ‘It worked then, whatever we did? Because really I don’t understand quite what that was on a technical level.’

‘We diverted the energy from the Master’s device to….’

Clara held up her hand, ‘I don’t need to know the details, I think you’ve got that, as long as we’re all OK and she’s gone…’

‘She will never be gone,’ the interface said.

‘Yeah she has a bad habit of cropping up but…’

‘Do not joke,’ the interface said seriously, ‘She cannot ever be truly gone. She cannot be destroyed.’

Clara frowned, ‘Why?’

‘She is as much a part of him as we are. I, as his ship, share an eternal link with his mind. You, in his Timeline, will be with him always, have always been with him.’ it said, ‘They too were bound to each other, but in childhood. They are the moons to each other’s planets, set to circle one another always. But the moon brings darkness when it blocks out the sun.’

Clara swallowed at the TARDS’ uncharacteristically weighted words, ‘He’ll never be free of her?’

‘There have been times he has not seen or heard of her for centuries, and this may again be one of those times, but one day she’ll return. She did not die, Clara, our actions only moved her, weakened her, placed her elsewhere for a time.’

‘Let’s just hope it’s a long time then…’ Clara reached for some clean clothes, folded on a nearby chair, ‘What about the storm? What about earth?’

‘There has been much damage and many lives lost,’ the interface said a little grimly. ‘The Doctor he… he is working on it.’

‘I thought he was getting treatment?’

‘He insisted. He always insists.’

_Sounds like him._

Clara fastened her shoes, ‘Where?’

‘Where you would expect him to be.’

She straightened and made her way to the door.

‘Clara,’ the interface said suddenly, its use of her name oddly overfamiliar and uncomfortable without her surname attached to it. It was enough to make her turn back and look at the hologram who stood awkwardly in the centre of the room, like a little girl at a recital.

‘What is it?’

‘Remember his hearts,’ was all she said.

XXXXXXXXXX

The Doctor had pulled a seat close to the console and was tinkering with controls as he kept his eyes focused on the monitor. As she drew closer Clara could see that the small device she and Missy had wrestled over had been hooked into the central column of the TARDIS console and that pulses of light were making their way from it down into the core.

‘I’m reversing the signals,’ the Doctor explained apparently aware of her despite her silent entrance, ’magnifying them using the TARDIS and undoing the storms. Unfortunately not able to undo a lot of the damage they caused but it will stop it spreading.’ He turned his head to her a little, ‘That was a very stupid thing you did, Clara,’ he said flatly.

Clara held his gaze, ‘Well you know me, Impulsive Girl… saved the day though didn’t it?’

‘In a manner of speaking,’ he conceded, ‘But we very nearly couldn’t save _you_.’

Clara frowned, ‘What do you mean? I’m in one piece, can’t even see any bumps or bruises…’

The Doctor sighed and pushed back from the console, dumping down his sonic and turning finally to face her full on.

‘No you won’t see any bumps and bruises Clara, the treatment is really very effective. But we did wonder when we administered it if it would be enough given the extent of the damage you did to yourself.’

‘Um… damage?’

He glared at her but she thought she detected something else behind his eyes that looked like fear.

‘Clara you have been unconscious in there for a week.’

‘A week!’ she felt a sudden jolt of panic.

‘Seven days, however you want to term it. The TARDIS has been sitting keeping watch over you, adjusting parameters _, keeping you alive_.’

Clara stung a little at that image, she’d always thought it would be him doing that if the occasion ever arose, ‘I suppose you’ve been out here stopping the storm?’

‘Well yes, for some of the time, some of the time I was recuperating myself.’ He looked away suddenly self-conscious and she noticed for the first time that there was evidence of trauma around his face. She glanced at his hands and saw grazes there too. He was still in fairly bad shape. She could remember the blood coming from his lips and accepted what he was saying, but still she felt oddly neglected by him. Laid out for a week with apparently serious injuries and he hadn’t so much as bothered to…

‘Of course a lot of the time I was in the medi-bay frantic with worry,’ he said, ‘If that’s what you are waiting to hear. And then we had to travel to Nargulon V to pick up some appropriate nano-technology to repair your nervous system, not an easy task given its status and intergalactic war zone. So all in all it’s been a bit of a hectic week. I’d appreciate not being put through that again.’

He was edgy and looked exhausted, a darkness around his eyes that could be mistaken for bruising; could have been bruising, Clara couldn’t tell.

‘What was wrong with my nervous system?’ she asked.

‘To put it mildly it was fried. Along with most of the rest of you. Still the good news is you’ve got a souped up immune system now so you’ll never catch the common cold again. Great for when you get back to teaching, because you are _certainly_ not going to employ it on any adventures with me…’ his voice was becoming increasingly tinged with bitterness and another emotion Clara was having trouble defining. She took a step forward and he averted his eyes.

‘Doctor?’

‘Now that you’re up we can take you back home. We’re in orbit at the moment to allow me to finish up working on the climate but the majority is done. I can drop you at your flat… or wherever you like, the flat might not be in habitable state…’

‘Doctor?’

He began programming co-ordinates with painful efficiency, ‘Perhaps your father’s house…’

‘Doctor wait!’ she slid a hand over his and stopped him from pulling the lever to start their journey. He looked first at her fingers and then up into her eyes. ‘You can’t just drop me back there.’

‘You should never have been here in the first place,’ he said echoing the conversation they had had before the arrival of Missy, ‘you should never have been at risk. I have to take you home.’ His voice was suddenly a little rougher than it had been and Clara watched as his gaze clouded a little.

‘But you promised,’ she said weakly.

‘Promised what?’

‘That when we stopped the storm we’d go and do something ordinary.’ There was a pause and when he looked down his lips twitched sadly.

‘Yes, I did didn’t I?’ he breathed.

‘My choice, you said.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you can’t break a promise,’ Clara said more than a little aware of the pleading in her voice. She watched him battle with himself for a minute longer.

‘Not to you, no,’ he said quietly.

Clara squeezed the hand she still held, ‘Well I’m not doing anything until we’ve done the ordinary thing,’ she affirmed. His eyes flickered up to her again questioningly. ‘Just give me a bit to get organised and then I’ll tell you where we’re going.’

‘And then you’ll let me take you back where you belong?’ Clara was already at the door to the corridor so she turned to reply, driven by a need to keep the mood light somehow. The look on his face made her breath catch in her throat as for a moment his guard dropped long enough for her to see deep into his eyes, at something ancient and beautiful and hers alone. As quickly as she saw it, it vanished again.

It took a second for her to find words before she replied, ‘I promise,’ she said, ‘After we do this, you can take me home,’ he nodded and turned back to the console, his thoughts closing in on himself as she left. Clara bit back on the rest of her words.

_But I get to say where home is._

 


	9. Chapter 9

At first she wasn’t sure how far she could push it but Clara knew that if she could rope the TARDIS into helping she’d be well on her way to orchestrating the whole ‘ordinary experience’ as she wished. The Doctor had been reluctant, preoccupied as he was by the storm, the damage, the work he had yet to do to repair that, not to mention she assumed his prickly emotions regarding her recent injuries. Eventually though she had persuaded him that he needed to put his trust in her, he had allowed her to pick the destination, but she didn’t want him to know where it was until they landed, so he’d been forced to agree to the TARDIS programming the co-ordinates and obscuring the data from his view. Clara was piloting this time. She had been aware of him watching her from his newly replaced leather chair on the balcony, his fingers steepled under his nose and his eyes piercing. She wasn’t sure if he was critiquing her driving or if his mind was working on something deeper but she glanced up and tried to smile reassuringly.

‘Trust. Me.’ she instructed, ‘It’s nothing dangerous, nothing weird. Its ordinary, that’s the point. I thought if anything you’d be complaining about how bored you were going to be. Ordinary is boring as you always say…’

He made no reply but folded his hands away and focused his attention elsewhere. Clara shifted uncomfortably. This had better work, she had better not have misjudged the whole situation. He had only just reappeared in her life and she did not want to push him away.

At the back of her mind the TARDIS hovered curiously, brushing her consciousness and his. Clara was suddenly envious, the time machine able to gain insight into both of them at some level, but then even with that insight the interface had admitted that its ability to read emotions was somewhat limited. It could see the information but not translate, that was why it had come to Clara in the first place. Right now it was aware of her anxiety and his discomfort, and the ache in his hearts as evident as ever.

Clara gently guided a lever into position and felt the ship hum around her, its engines firing and preparing to begin the process of materialising at her chosen destination. The Doctor looked up quickly clearly frustrated he had no idea where they were headed. He seemed to hate being out of control as much as she did. Clara secured the lever in its final position and then moved up the steps to meet him.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

He sighed, pushing himself from the chair. ‘Do we really have to do _this_ , like this?’

‘Yes,’ and she handed him a length of red silk she had requested the TARDIS find in the as yet inaccessible wardrobe. ‘Blindfold until further notice,’ he looked at her hesitantly.

‘I don’t think I’m comfortable with…’

‘Blindfold,’ she said quickly, leading him down the steps and waiting at the TARDIS door for him to put it on. ‘Just this once, do it for me.’ Another sigh but he cautiously lifted the material and tied it over his eyes, Clara leaning in to tightened it a little and secure the bow. She took his hand, cool in her own, and then stepped slightly behind him, guiding him with her other hand at the centre of his back. He flinched.

‘Still bruised?’ she asked, ‘That was a pretty big panel that fell on you,’ she eased her touch.

‘It’s not that,’ he said softly and Clara frowned.

‘What then?’ she reached for the TARDIS doors but the machine was ahead of her and popped them open. Clara cast her eyes out at their destination and smiled.

‘I just feel… a little vulnerable,’ he confessed reticently.

Clara took a moment to let her gaze wander fully over him now that she was sure he could not see. She took in each detail of his mouth, his lips, the curls of his hair, the texture of his skin. Carefully she lifted her fingers to his cheek and held his face even as he tried briefly to twitch away.

‘A part of me has been with you throughout your two thousand years, Doctor,’ she said, ‘I’ve seen everything there is to see, every face, every side of you. If you can’t be vulnerable around me, who can you be vulnerable with?’

She thought she heard him swallow painfully and the lump in her own throat threatened to make her voice break.

‘Now come and see….’ She resumed her position and guided him out of the door. ‘Keep walking straight ahead, that’s it, downhill a little just to warn you…’

Outside of the TARDIS the sounds of nature became louder but retained a soothing softness. The wash of sea on sand, the gentlest of breezes rustling though the grasses at the edge of the beach she had chosen for them. She felt the Doctor begin to relax a little as he tuned into the environment. She could almost hear him thinking that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Anywhere that peaceful must be safe, which meant that she would be safe and right now that seemed to be his preoccupation. Clara brought him to a halt thirty yards or so from the TARDIS and steadied him with a hand on each arm.

‘Ok so I need you to sit…. On the ground… I know I know a bit awkward being blindfolded,’ she hushed him quickly, ‘Just do it slowly…’

She made sure he lowered himself safely and then rummaged in her pocket for the things the TARDIS had given her earlier. Clara had been directed to various storerooms in the ship to pick up the trinkets the Doctor had gathered on his travels, among which was a tiny green capsule with a single button on it which when pressed would convert into a picnic set for two. Popular the TARDIS informed her with tourists in the Orion nebula. Clara put it on the ground at her feet and prodded it, shrieking inadvertently when it exploded outwards into an enormous picnic blanket covered with a hamper, plates and food. The edge of the blanket flapped over the Doctor’s outstretched leg.

‘What the!?’

‘It’s ok, it’s just um…. Well you’ll see what it is… but it’s fine,’ Clara reassured and moved the picnic things around a little so she could sit next to him.

‘Can I remove this yet?’ he asked gesturing to the blindfold.

‘I’ll do it…’ Clara reached forward allowing herself one last look at him without his eyes on her before she unknotted the bow and let the material slip from his face. He blinked.

‘Thank you,’ he said and turned to look in front of him. Immediately the slightest frown formed on his face.

‘Clara…’

‘I know…’

‘Clara…’

‘Just hear me out…’

He looked back at her, ‘This isn’t very ordinary,’ he said somewhat sternly.

‘Well it depends on your definition of ordinary.’

‘I mean ordinary as in young human female perspective. _This_ ,’ he waved across the landscape, ‘Is not ordinary if you’re a schoolteacher on earth with a penchant for soufflé and Jane Austen.’

Clara smiled a little, ‘But it _is_ ordinary for you,’ she said. He looked at her curiously.

‘And?’ he prompted.

‘And… I want to share it with you,’ she said.

He did as near to a double take as she had ever seen and an incredulous expression settled over his features.

‘You want to _share_ it with me?’ he asked, a cluster of different emotions in his tone. ‘Oh Clara, Clara, no…’

‘Yes,’ Clara said simply, ‘But first we need to finish the conversation that was so rudely interrupted by your nemesis.’

‘What conversation?’ he asked but his tone gave him away.

‘The one where I was about to ask just what it was that made your ‘hearts ache’ over the last few months.’

He sighed and turned away from her, his eyes scanning down the length of the blue beach and onwards into the purple sea. ‘The TARDIS was not her usual self when you got on board, I wouldn’t take anything she says with much seriousness.’

‘TARDIS is fine now and still thinks there’s an issue. I think there’s an issue, and I want to talk about it.’

‘So you bring me to… where is this anyway?’

‘You don’t remember? We came here before,’ Clara gestured to the picnic, ‘With a picnic then as well, we watched the suns set.’

He looked at her blankly.

‘It was when you were different,’ she confessed, ‘When you were… before Trenzalore.’

That by now familiar twitch returned to his jaw. ‘A lot of the ‘before’ is hazy,’ he said. ‘I’m not him, well I am… but Clara you can’t recreate how it was.’

‘I’m not trying to, I’m more concerned with how it _is_ ,’ she said, ‘I just thought it’s pretty here and we could talk… and its peaceful… no gigantic storms to worry about. Nothing here ever changes. I mean six hundred years have gone by for you and this place is exactly the same….’

She took a deep breath, ‘And so am I,’ she said and brought her gaze to his. He looked at her a little wistfully, his eyes measuring what they saw, wishing, hoping before dismissing and looking away.

‘No, you aren’t,’ he said shortly.

_Here it comes._

‘You aren’t the same Clara, you aren’t that wide eyed girl that first stepped into the TARDIS. You’ve seen things and done things that have changed you fundamentally, I should never have allowed it to happen.’

‘It was my choice, all of it was my choice.’

‘You’ve been corrupted…’

‘Oh come on!’ She laughed at the intensity of his words and he bristled.

‘Listen to me,’ he snapped, ‘I’m not exaggerating, this isn’t hyperbole for dramatic effect, you have been altered. You have had to make too many choices Clara, and watch me make them too. You, the eternal optimist with the moral compass have been forced to watch me chose between who dies next on a list of relentless bad choices with no good outcome. There’s too much… darkness… And you tell me that I try to be a good man and that’s what matters? Well it isn’t what matters, Clara, not to me, and I don’t want you to be around that.’

‘I choose what and _who_ I am around,’ she said firmly.

‘Right because that has been working so well for you. Last time you made some choices you tried to split your life down the middle between time travelling and teaching, between petting my ego at my request on a regular basis and being a good girlfriend to the soldier. Tell me how well that worked out for you Clara, because from where I’m sitting now, on this oh so _not_ ordinary beach, your involvement with me cost your boyfriend’s life.’

‘Do you think that’s all I do, pet your ego?’

‘What?’

‘Is that my role?’

‘No… Clara, you’re hearing the wrong bits of this.’

‘I heard the bit about Danny,’ she said, ‘And you’re right, I’ve got a lot of bad feelings about how all of that worked out. He didn’t need to die. And when he did he could have come back, but he didn’t. And I have all sorts of emotions tied up with all of that, not least that I was a lousy girlfriend and he deserved better. But I’ve also come to realise, and perhaps only in the last little while, that there was a _reason_ I was a lousy girlfriend and that reason was that I could never be honest with myself.’

‘Honest about what?’

‘That I don’t have it in me to give you up,’ Clara said, ‘Not really, no matter how much I kid myself I want the ordinary life and the ordinary boyfriend and to do ordinary things,’ she gestured to the alien world around them, ‘I’d still deep down always want the extraordinary. And that’s you, Doctor, you’re as extraordinary as they come.’

‘You’re wrong,’ he said. He looked as though he was trying to block out the sound of her voice, knuckle down in his own mind and keep her at bay. It looked as though every word was hurting.

‘About?’

‘Me.’

‘Am I?’ Clara fixed him with her stare, purple waves reflecting in his eyes. ‘Maybe I am… maybe you’re more ordinary and more understandable than you seem. Maybe you _are_ flawed. Maybe we’re the same,’ she said, ‘Your reasons for not telling me about Gallifrey…? The same as mine for not telling you about Danny. We don’t get everything right I know, but we try to protect each other, we always have, we just don’t work well apart, life won’t let us _be_ apart, we are tied together. Look at us Doctor, we try to go our separate ways and a storm crash lands you outside my flat. A storm you were heading into alone to deal with. A storm we ended _together_. Doesn’t all of that tell you something?’

‘Yes it tells me you’re trying to romanticise the situation. We are _not_ the same.’

Clara let out an exasperated noise. ‘You’re impossible.’

‘So are you.’

‘It’s in my job description, _Impossible Girl_ , what’s your excuse?’ Clara sniped.

There was a pause. ‘Maybe I’ve spent too much time around the Impossible Girl and it rubbed off,’ he said his tone sarcastically light.

Clara shot a side long glance at him. ‘I didn’t rub off on you I’m _part_ of you. This is serious you know,’ she said.

‘I’m well aware of that,’ he growled.

‘I’m not going back to earth, at least not without you in tow, I’ve nothing to go back for really anyway, the flat is wrecked, the school probably is too, so I might as well stick around…’

He looked over at her fully, ‘Clara,’ he said wearily. ‘No…. anything could happen to you, anything almost did, you came so close to….’ He caught himself, his voice beginning to rise, and she could almost see him straining to bring it under control again, like a child pulling on a balloon afraid it would fly away. He swallowed and resumed, the slightest tremble to his tone giving him away.

‘I’ve seen it happen so many times, lost so many versions of you. I can’t let it happen to the real thing.’

Clara held his eye for a moment and allowed the unspoken emotion to float between them bare and fragile.

‘Look,‘ she said at last, ‘I’ve just spent the last few months without you and it’s been some of the most miserable time of my life. And of course everyone around me thought it was because of Danny and don’t get me wrong that was a big chunk of it, especially the guilt. But mainly it was the lying awake wondering if that was the TARDIS I just heard or the wind, or the times when I walked down the street and thought someone across the road was you. And I hated myself for selfishly wanting you back when I thought you finally had what you needed. And then the next thing I know you’re on my couch, bleeding and muttering about a storm and all I can think is, ‘he’s here, he’s back’ and that I can’t ever let you go again.’

Clara was watching his face even as he tried to turn from her. She would not let him dismiss her or block her out. Impulsively she took one of his hands in both of hers and his eyes leapt to her face.

‘I’m doing this and that’s an end to it,’ she said, ‘It’s my decision. And if you are worried I can promise you that I will not get hurt. I _cannot_ get hurt if I am with you, not in any way close to the way I hurt when I was without you.’

_Come on Doctor meet me half way with this._

The Doctor dropped his gaze, ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Clara said the tension beating her at last, ‘Oh? Is that it? I’m pouring my heart out here trying to explain it all and make you see, and force you somehow to open up and talk to me about this and all you can say is oh?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I don’t know! More than oh!’

Clara reached forward and opened the picnic hamper that had magically appeared on the blanket. She felt a little queasy with all the talk and needed something to settle her stomach so she extracted some crusty bread and some butter. ‘Oh!’ she muttered. ‘Oh indeed.’ She huffed and savagely cut off hunks of bread. There was nothing but the sound of sea and her irritation for several moments.

When she heard him stifle a laugh she rounded on him, ‘What?’

‘We are useless at this,’ The Doctor said. He still looked uncomfortable but there was the slightest hint that he had absorbed and accepted some of her words at least.

‘What? No... wait _you_ are useless at this and that is something that I would say,’ she pointed the butter knife at him and then spread her bread.

‘But we’re the same Clara,’ he said somewhat mischievously.

Clara bit into her bread to hide her smile, ‘Nomph,’ she said between chews. The Doctor suddenly laughed out loud and when she turned round next he was lying flat on his back on the blue sand gazing up at the sky. He appeared to be giggling, part of her thought it was with a certain amount of relief but it could equally be hysteria. She had to admit the conversation had been getting a bit tense and was perhaps best tackled in stages.

‘So you don’t want to go back to earth,’ he said.

‘No,’ Clara began spreading another piece of bread, ‘I’m staying with you and the TARDIS.’

‘You two seem very close these days,’ he commented.

‘We have a lot in common, mainly you,’ the look she received from him was slightly concerned. Clara shoved the buttered bread in his direction, ‘Here, eat.’ He took it and chewed thoughtfully.

‘And what do you want to do while you’re hanging around the TARDIS?’ he asked.

‘The usual, what we usually do. Go places, visit things, have adventures.’

‘Oh Clara…’ he whined.

‘Don’t oh Clara me, I just said, I’ll be fine and you enjoy it as much as I do and there’s been a part of you missing it, you’ve as good as said so since you’ve been back.’

‘Yes, yes as I said don’t let it go to your head,’ he finished his bread. ‘Does this mean we can skip any further awkward conversations about feelings?’

‘For now,’ she rummaged in the hamper for the next course and decided to give them both a break. She pulled out some salad ingredients and began arranging them on plates. Beside her the Doctor watched her for a moment before glancing up at the huge violet coloured suns circling the skies above them and coming to some decision.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘We go on as before, but no taking risks, Clara, no acting the hero….’

‘That should go for both of us,’ she remarked. He gave her a hard glance in return before conceding with a nod.

‘Fine,’ he said not altogether convincingly.

‘And no lies,’ she handed him a plate with a glare, ‘We start this afresh.’ She could see him struggling with that one. ‘ _Doctor_.’

‘Clara life isn’t as simple as ‘no lies.’

‘Look at me now and tell me you haven’t been as miserable as me for the last few months,’ she said, ‘We could have avoided all of that with honesty.’

His look softened a little and she heard him release a breath. ‘OK.’ He looked back out to the sea and sighed.

Clara brushed some crumbs from her skirt and felt a flutter in her chest. It was a start. They were sort of back on track and some of the issues from the past she had wanted to raise were out there.

_In for a penny._

But one from their future wasn’t.

_In for a pound._

_I need to say it._

She glanced at him and watched him pour drinks from a flask for them both. She was sure, all the signs were there and it could be the only explanation but at the same time she felt arrogant to assume.

_But what if I’m wrong._

If it hadn’t been for the TARDIS she might never have even thought of it as an option but she’d seen it there, in his eyes, just before the lights died on the ship and Missy made her entrance.

_I did see it. I did._

He handed her some tea and raised his cup to hers in a toast.

‘To the future then,’ he said and caught her eye. Clara wondered just for a split second if he had been reading her thoughts but of course he would consider that to be an intrusion. In a way that fact alone frustrated her. She felt suddenly frightened and desperate, something inside her screaming to have the truth declared, to just say it, just do it, just make it real.

_He won’t ever tell me, he needs me to do this. Oh God, can I do this?_

‘To the future,’ she replied. ‘You and me.’

He couldn’t hold her gaze.

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

 

Clara dumped the hamper down on the console room floor with a huff. It was surprisingly heavy once packed and she couldn’t figure out how to make it shrink down into capsule form again.

‘You could have carried it for me…’ she moaned. The Doctor was already pressing buttons on the control panels.

‘I’m the brains of the operation,’ he smiled.

‘That makes me brawny, I resent that, I am not brawny,’ she inspected her upper arms, pushing her sleeves up and flexing them. ‘See, nothing to write home about.’ The Doctor flicked his gaze up and looked away quickly. ‘Do we still have a kitchen?’ she asked.

‘Not entirely sure, food is a necessity so I doubt she deleted it during her melt down.’ He prodded two more buttons and the interface leapt into shape.

‘What?’ it said.

The Doctor raised his eyebrows, ‘Well aren’t you chirpy?’

‘I am still trying to repair. This is another interruption.’

‘How’s it coming along?’

It folded its arms and glared at him. ‘Slowly. What is it you need?’

The Doctor shot a bemused look at Clara who choked back a laugh. ‘Clara will be staying with us for the foreseeable future…’ she felt her lips twitch into a smile at that, the warm tone of his voice as he said the words soothing her frayed nerves. ‘So she’ll be needing her room back,’ he finished.

_Oh God I forgot about that… she thinks we’re…._

The TARDIS interface looked confused. ‘I don’t understand…’

He passed a hand over his face, ‘We weren’t entirely honest with you earlier…’ he began

The interface spun to look at Clara, ‘You were misleading. Again?’ it queried.

_Oh God._

Clara cold sense her newly formed friendship with the TARDIS going downhill.

‘We both mislead you,’ the Doctor came to her defence. ‘The truth is we are not…’ he searched awkwardly for the words, ‘An ‘item’… we’re friends. Travelling companions. What I mean to say is things are back to normal so Clara needs her room back.’

Clara smiled hopefully at the TARDIS. It glared at her.

‘You failed,’ it said.

‘What?’ Clara squeaked.

‘You failed your task,’ it said. ‘I have limited resources currently and gave these to you without question, and yet you failed. You failed me and you failed him.’

_His hearts ache._

‘Wait a minute… no…’ Clara waved her hands at it, trying to ignore the Doctor’s curious look.

‘I brought you here, supplied what you needed, accessed areas inside this ship which are extraneous to basic need when my energy is low and you failed.’

‘Um… Clara…?’ the Doctor drew closer to her.

‘Maybe she’s faulty again?’ Clara tried to divert attention from her onto the interface.

‘I am not faulty!’ the interface snapped, ‘But _he_ is. And you will not be getting your room back.’

And it vanished suddenly taking with it around fifty percent of the lighting and closing down her engines.

‘Marvellous,’ the Doctor grumbled.

Clara laughed nervously. ‘I guess we’re sharing.’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘Clara when you said you wanted to share with me I didn’t think you meant a bed,’ it was half irritation half attempt at a joke but when she said nothing a wave of panic seemed to pass behind his eyes; he barely contained it from spilling out over his other features.

‘You can take my room,’ he said working on his composure. ‘I don’t need much rest.’

‘Not what I’ve been noticing recently.’

‘Recently I’ve mauled by a storm. I’m better now. I can do without until she fixes herself or comes to her senses.’

Clara felt the angry tendrils of the irritated TARDIS poke at her mind.

‘That could be a while,’ she said.

‘Well there’s a medi-bay, there’s my chair,’ he gestured up to the balcony. ‘I will manage.’

Clara hovered wondering if she quite had the guts to insist he sleep in his own bed. Wondering just how she was going to address the last lingering subject between them. Somehow with the storm threatening to destroy earth it had been easier to think, spurred on perhaps by adrenaline, bravado and the natural instinct to live. It had been easier to have clarity and see the truth. Now they were back to normal, the pressure was off and suddenly it all seemed much harder. He was his usually distant self and she... well she seemed to be losing her nerve.

_Come on Oswald you just banished the Master you can tell the Doctor how you feel._

She picked up the hamper and went to find the kitchen.

_No I can’t I’m better at defeating lunatic aliens than I am with boyfriend stuff._

She was rinsing a plate when the interface appeared behind her and coughed. The plate clattered into the sink.

‘Bloody hell!’ she turned and glowered at it. ‘Don’t do that… sneaking thing! What is it?’

‘Why have you not addressed the Doctor’s faults?’

‘It’s not the right time,’ Clara said, ‘He’s only just agreed to let me travel with him again, he wasn’t even going to do that. He thinks he’s a bad influence or I can’t make my own choices or something. He was going to drop me back on earth and leave again.’

‘I would not have allowed it.’

‘Well I didn’t know that!’

The interface edged closer to her until their noses were almost touching, that was if the interface’s nose wasn’t a hologram.

‘You have not made enough progress,’ it criticised.

‘I’m trying! We talked, we got some things out into the open. I think we can be more honest with each other…’

It cocked its head and looked at her in disbelief.

‘Give me my room back!’ Clara cried impetuously. She was getting tired now and just wanted to take a break from the emotions. She’d just helped save the world for heaven’s sake.

‘No, that would defeat the purpose.’

‘So how do you suggest I fulfil the purpose?’

‘Make his hearts feel better.’

‘How?’

‘Do what humanoid mates do. Copulate.’ Clara stared at the interface.

‘That’s not exactly romantic,’ she said.

‘It will fix his hearts.’

‘That really _isn’t_ romantic. There’s more to it than that. I need time, we need time. There are… things that need spoken about, feelings…’

The interface actually rolled its eyes and Clara looked affronted.

‘We can’t just….’ She flapped a little, ‘We have to discuss it, I have to tell him… that I… that I…’

_Love him._

‘You are delaying,’ the interface said.

‘It’s a big step!’ Clara protested, ‘And not one I know how to go about.’ The TARDIS stepped back a pace and a more sympathetic expression appeared on its face.

‘You have not copulated before? I can provide informative film material.’

‘No! Wait… you have that on board?’

‘Yes, it is in the library.’

‘The Doctor’s library?’ Clara’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Gosh.’

‘Would you like to see…?’

‘No! I know how to… do that thank you.’

‘Then what don’t you know?’ the interface said.

‘How to… make him relax I suppose. How to make him let down his guard and accept what he feels and not fight everything the whole time. How to get him to stop worrying about all the repercussions and consequences and all the things that make him feel guilty and bad and unworthy and just _be_.’

_How to find the courage to cross the line with my best friend._

The interface stood still for a moment, calculating. ‘I have no response,’ it said at last.

‘See! He’s tricky!’

‘Yes,’ it agreed without hesitation.

‘So I need my room back, I don’t want to scare him.’

‘No,’ it said.

‘But!’

‘You will remain in the same room.’

‘Well we won’t because he’s going to sleep in his chair, or in the medi-bay, or not at all.’

The interface pursed its lips. ‘He must get rest,’ it said.

‘He’s a Time Lord he doesn’t need rest.’

‘He must stay with you.’

Clara sighed and turned back to the sink to continue her washing up. ‘He won’t do it, he’s stubborn and he has all these sensibilities. He never used to. I mean when he had the bow tie he’d be flirty but get embarrassed at the suggestion of anything but he would have shared a room. Treated it like a sleepover, insisted on reading stories by torchlight under a blanket or building a fort or something but he would have shared. Now he’s serious, and filled with all this self loathing. He doesn’t flirt and won’t even get embarrassed that often, he just blocks it out, anything to do with intimacy, romantic feelings. He ignores it completely. He pretends it doesn’t exist.’

‘You know it exists.’

‘I know it exists…,’ she paused and ran her mind over recent memories, and of that sad haunted look she kept catching in his eyes, ‘…and now you know it exists and he knows it too he just won’t admit it. He’s avoidant. Infuriating and avoidant.’

She stuck a cup on the drying rack with too much force and rinsed off her hands sprinkling water as she turned through the ethereal body of the interface. It stepped back further with a faint look of disgust at the dishwater.

‘I’m going to bed,’ Clara said suddenly, altogether drained.

‘Good.’

‘Alone.’

The TARDIS didn’t reply.

 

XXXXXXXX

Clara noticed a few changes to the Doctor’s bedroom when she eventually found her way back to it. The most noticeable being the rather scanty black lingerie the TARDIS appeared to have gathered for her and laid out on the bed. Clara sighed and shook her head.

‘Not happening!’ she said to nowhere in particular, ‘I told you it’s complicated, I can’t just put this on and jump him and expect both of us to feel OK.’ She glanced around the room and noted the wine on ice, some roses and, she picked the item up, massage oil. ‘Think you’ve been getting too many ideas from those films.’ She blushed suddenly, the Doctor had racy films on board, that was very… un-him. She wondered if they belonged to a former incarnation. Not bowtie suddenly? She swallowed and put the massage oil back on the table. Maybe it was just the skin healing stuff, yes that was probably it.

‘Can I have some pyjamas?’ she asked. She opened a few cupboards and found only dark suits and crisply ironed white shirts. The TARDIS ignored her request pointedly. ‘Fine one of these will do,’ and she pulled a shirt out to wear, rolling up its sleeves a little to stop the cuffs dangling to her knees. ‘Wait why doesn’t he have any pyjamas?’ Her eyes went wide.

_Maybe he doesn’t wear any._

She quickly shut the cupboard door and retreated to the satin covered bed where he’d ‘had a personal life,’ staring at it and trying not to picture what she was picturing. There was a whole side to this version of him that she hadn’t expected. Surely he’d not had a personal life in here since he changed? He’d not mentioned anything…. But then he wouldn’t. And she had no way of knowing where he went between Wednesdays or what he did.

Clara felt a stab of jealousy which caught her unawares. She glared at the bed. No, he wouldn’t he was definitely too buttoned up and repressed this time around. Apart from the films and maybe the pyjamas.

_You don’t know about the pyjamas for sure._

_But he does have satin sheets._

_Stop it._

Clara quickly stripped down and changed into his shirt, securing it with a couple of its buttons. Hesitantly she brought a sleeve to her nose and inhaled. It smelled of him, or maybe of alien washing powder, but it was a scent she associated with him and it made her smile. It also made something in her head relax a little.

‘Just go to sleep,’ she told herself, pulling back the covers to be greeted with another gentle waft of pleasant scent. ‘Go to sleep and speak to him tomorrow. Get it out in the open, take your time. Reassure both of us. Softy softly catchy monkey.’ She turned the light off and lay on her side.

She had just closed her eyes when an almighty bang alerted her to the Doctor careering through the door and slamming it shut behind him, a few shredded papers blowing in through the gap before he could secure it. Outside Clara was sure she could hear things battering off the door.

‘Doctor? What is it?’ She shot up in bed.

He was leaning into the door, panting for breath. ‘I don’t know Clara, it started in the console room, some sort of temporal disturbance I think. It ripped through the control panel and then came after me. It’s taken out the engines, the living areas, even the medi-bay…’

In her mind the TARDIS sent the tiniest of nudges towards Clara.

_The medi-bay._

‘Oh God,’ she said more to herself than to him.

‘Indeed,’ he tentatively let go of the door and checked to see if it would hold, ‘Perhaps its some after effect from the storm, it looked almost like a cyclone in its shape and diameter, but how can it exist inside the TARDIS, what’s controlling it?’ he began pacing back and forth, Clara shuffled under the covers uncomfortably.

‘Um… Doctor…’

‘Wait! Listen!’

‘What?’

‘The noise, it’s died down.’

‘Ah…’

He returned to the door, placing one hand on the handle and holding his sonic in the other. ‘Stay there,’ he said over his shoulder as he tugged on the door.

He tugged again.

‘Doctor….’ Clara said, ‘I think…’

‘We’re stuck!’ he exclaimed, ‘Whatever it is has locked us in,’ he made a frustrated motion. ‘Gods what if it’s her again, what if it’s Missy?’

‘Doctor…’ he glanced up at her.

‘Why are you wearing my shirt?’ he asked absently.

‘Missy hasn’t locked us in. But I think I know who has,’ she said.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

Clara tucked the sheets around her legs a little tighter and addressed the back of the Doctor’s head. He was perched on the edge of the bed aiming his sonic at the door in an attempt to unlock it. She suspected even if he was by chance successful the TARDIS induced cyclone would start up again outside and trap them further, but the idea of confinement was making him distinctly uneasy and he refused to entertain options other than getting out of the room.

He’d been there for an hour and the combined stress of recent events showed on him. He looked terrible, exhausted and dishevelled, his jacket draped over the foot of the bed and his sleeves rolled up. She could see grazes across his forearms and hands from the storm and the confrontation with Missy a week or so ago. She wished he would just rest.

‘She won’t let up,’ Clara said of the TARDIS. ‘She’s very determined.’

‘I know that Clara, she’s my ship, we share a certain brand of stubbornness.’

Clara smirked, yes they did but that also meant this could be a long battle.

‘It’s late, Doctor,’ she yawned.

‘Well go to sleep,’ he said over his shoulder. The sonic buzzed wearily.

‘I can’t with you doing that.’

At last he sighed and laid the sonic on the bed. ‘Fine, I’ll stop for now, but first thing…’

‘Yes, yes…’ Clara tugged the covers over herself and lay back down. She really was quite exhausted and despite her desire to sort things with the Doctor her body was protesting and quite firmly ordering her to rest. She felt him stand, the bed dipping and rebounding under her.

‘Um… Clara…?’ he said.

‘Mmmph?’

‘Was there a chair in here before?’

‘Don’t know, wasn’t really looking.’

The Doctor cursed under his breath, ‘She’s taken my chaise longue.’

‘You have a chaise longue?’

‘Yes?’

‘That’s very….’ She couldn’t find an appropriate word, ‘Decadent?’ she tried. She imagine him reclining on it in a dressing gown.

He sighed. ‘Not decadent, Clara, relaxing. Comfortable.’ The bed dipped back down as he sat. Clara swallowed.

‘Well lie down here,’ she said, ‘Your bed is comfortable too.’

Clara held her breath. The light went out.

‘You can’t sit on the end of the bed all night you’re still recovering from those injuries,’ she said coaxingly.

More silence. Clara sighed.

‘You slept in my bed at the flat,’ she tried, ‘It’s the same thing.’

‘No I passed out in your bed after… well after you…. Saw to my injuries… and you joined me.’

‘Don’t split hairs. Lie down.’

There was another pause, she could hear him take a breath and hold it and then quite unexpectedly the bed moved again under her and she heard him move up beside her. She was about to make some sort of semi sarcastic comment to break the tension when she heard his breath hitch again. This time it sounded painful.

‘The TARDIS said you were healing, getting treatment,’ Clara said, ‘How’s that coming along.’

‘Too slowly for my liking,’ he said, his voice a little strained. She felt him shift next to her uncomfortably.

‘What kind of injuries did you have?’

‘The usual. Massive soft tissue damage, broken ribs, puncture lung.’

Clara spun to face him but his features were obscured by the dim light. ‘That’s awful.’

‘Well its better than it was a week ago.’

‘What treatment did you get…? I mean did you get the nano thingies too?’

‘Something similar but not as effective…’ he paused, ‘Our priority was you, Clara, I made do.’

‘So… you’re still pretty sore?’

He sighed.

Clara swallowed again. ‘Anything I can do?’

‘No,’

‘Where’s the worst of it?’

‘What?’

‘The injury… where’s the worst of it, across your back?’

‘Yes,’ he said irritably, fatigued in his voice, ‘a metric ton of TARDIS wall landed on me, so yes the worst of it is across my back.’

Clara winced. ‘I could….’

_Just say it, you did it before._

_Yes but I didn’t feel like this before, like some tongue tied schoolgirl._

_Say it._

‘I could do the massage thing again… with the oil… it helped.’

She could practically hear him tighten every muscle in fear. ‘No,’ he said sharply. A second later he exhaled and his voice softened. ‘I appreciate it Clara, but there’s no need. I’ve already applied the oil.’

‘To your back?’

‘Well… no…. obviously not there but to the other injuries, the ones I could er.. reach.’ He wriggled and then gave up turning on his side away from her to relieve the pressure on the bruising across his shoulders. He made a tiny noise of discomfort.

Clara chewed her lip and watched the profile of his body against the dim background of the room, his ribcage rising and falling in a not quite rhythm still interrupted by pain. God, he could be so…. Infuriating. Cutting off his nose to spite his face. Stubborn, irritating…

_This is silly._

She sat up suddenly and reached to the bedside table for the oil the TARDIS had left there oh so deliberately. When she flipped open the cap she immediately recognised the scent as that of the alien healing oil she had used before.

‘Take your shirt off,’ she said more abruptly that she had intended, her nerves altering her pitch.

The Doctor tried to glare at her over his shoulder but flinched at the movement, ‘What? No!’

‘Fine,’ Clara leaned forward and tugged up the back of his shirt. The Doctor yelped and tried to sit up but the movement only allowed her to pull further and the front of the shirt came loose from his trousers.

‘Clara!’

Her fingers quickly undid the buttons.

‘Stop… stop!’ he tried to take her hands but by the time he had a grip they were already on his chest. He suddenly froze and Clara became aware of his breath landing softly on her face.

‘Just… let me help…’ she said.

‘Clara…’ more softly this time. He didn’t release her wrists but didn’t pull her away.

Tentatively she stroked one hand across his skin, a little shiver of excitement going through her as she caught one of his nipples with her palm and felt it harden under her touch. She could feel his eyes on her even though it was too dark to see detail, just the slight glimmer of light caught in his pupils.

Clara removed her hands and squeezed some oil into one of them, spreading it and returning to his body. He hadn’t moved but his breathing had speeded up and she could hear that it was coming through his mouth in tiny pants. When she touched her hands back to his skin she could feel his hearts hammering. She shifted her position closer and began working his flesh, until she was kneeling in front of him, her face close to his, their foreheads almost touching.

‘Clara…’

‘Shhh…’

_Don’t. Don’t argue, don’t give me a list of reasons why. Just be._

‘Clara…’

‘It’s OK,’ she whispered.

She heard him swallow. ‘My back…’ he said with difficulty. Clara hesitated. He was directing her and it was torturously difficult for him. Of course he couldn’t reach his back, that’s where the worst of it was. She lifted her hands to his shoulders and pushed back his shirt just as she had back in her flat at the start of all of this. But this felt very different. As the material fell away she reapplied more oil to her hands.

‘Turn around,’ she said.

The Doctor pulled his sleeves from his arms and disposed of his shirt. There was a beat and then she felt his hands wrap around her forearms and guide her closer to him, pulling her into his body and suggesting with his movements that she run her palms up the length of his back from where she sat. They stayed face to face.

_He’s asking me to hold him. It’s dark and he doesn’t have to say anything and maybe this is as close to a conversation as we’re going to get._

Clara’s fingers met with his skin and he hissed with something like pain but quickly relaxed against her again as the oil spread across the damaged areas and her soft touch eased into his injuries. She felt him dip his head against her neck and suddenly a thrill went through her as he nuzzled against her hair and shifted his body closer to her. She thought she could feel him tremble when his arms came up around her and his fingertips touched her tentatively through the fabric of her borrowed shirt. Clara closed her eyes and continued working on his skin, her head resting against his shoulder and a smile forming on her lips.

_No words then. Words are awkward._

His hands moved with more confidence now, stroking down to her waist and tugged her tighter towards him. The moment was long and peaceful between them, sealed in a private world, protected and at odds with the chaos they had left outside of them, like the eye of a storm. Slowly Clara found herself longing for more of him but her lips wouldn’t move to ask. Then his fingers slipped under the edge of her shirt, his shirt, and pushed slowly up her thighs making her heart leap and the adrenaline trickle through her belly.

How had she never been tempted like this before? Every touch felt like electricity, addictive and powerful.

_Perhaps that’s why he never touched me._

His hands kept moving upward. Over her belly, to her ribs, cupping her breasts, his thumbs glancing over her nipples. Clara’s own breathing picked up and she gasped casing him to hesitate before she bent her head and pressed a soft kiss of reassurance to his chest. He resumed his caresses and then let his fingers continue their journey until unbidden she raised her arms for him to remove the shirt.

For the first time he spoke.

‘You’re sure?’ his voice shook a little.

‘Yes,’ it was both the most difficult and most easy word she would speak that night.

Her shirt came away and fluttered whitely in the darkness as the Doctors hands traveled down her spine and pressed her against him, flesh on flesh. A soft noise came from his throat and he quickly pressed his lips against her neck as tough to try and contain it. Clara felt warmth flood across her chest and cheeks, her heartbeat skipping faster. She pressed harder into his skin, pulling her hands down his back with more pressure than she intended and causing him to both whimper and buck.

‘Sorry…’ she breathed.

‘Don’t be…’ he gathered one arm around her waist and flipped her so that she was on her back with him above her, ‘The oil’s doing its job just… go a little gently.’

‘OK,’ she whispered.

‘Clara?’ he nuzzled against her cheek.

‘Mmm?’

His lips trailed along her cheekbone almost to her lips with fluttering delicate touches. She wriggled under him, suddenly needy.

‘Let me kiss you…’ he murmured and she realised at once how much was hanging between them, how much they both wanted and feared the next step. He could have kissed her, taken her lips in his by now, everything about her body was screaming for him to do so, but he held back, uncertain to the last.

_(Am I a good man? Am I good enough?)_

Clara turned her head to him a little more and lifted her hands to his hair, tangling her fingers through it, pulling him in closer, her lips finally meeting his.

He grunted and she was suddenly tight in his arms, his body pressing down on her and urging her to accept him. Clara lifted her hips a little and pulled her legs up, capturing him and holding him against her, feeling his hard length trapped between them and the way he jerked into her when she shifted her body. She opened her mouth a fraction and let him slide inside, their kiss deepening to a longed for languid rhythm. She wanted more, but she never wanted the moment to end either. Clara ground up and into him, their breathing picking up in tandem and a series of needy gasps coming from their lips.

At last he made a move to move them further, one of his hands seeking hers and cautiously placing it between them over the clasp of his belt. She could hear the tension in his breathing as he hid his face against her neck in shame of his need. Quickly she drew both her hands down and unbuckled him, finding his zipper and pushing the material away. The Doctor groaned into her and she slipped her hand over the length of him in response eliciting a thrust of his hips and a short ‘ah’ stuttered against the crook of her neck. That single sound went through her to her core and she was suddenly desperate, encouraging him out of his trousers and then grasping him back to her, her mouth fixed on his and her fingers running almost painfully through his hair. Need had reached a new and pressing level, she could feel it in them both, spiralling and escalating through their bodies as one.

He broke away from her mouth and kissed down her body, slipping backwards easily on the satin sheets and cupping her hips in his hands as he travelled, his lips and tongue making contact with her belly, her inner thighs, her sex. Clara whimpered under his touch and felt her body melt into him, heat and intensity spilling from her in sharp waves, her fingers catching first on the sheets and then impulsively tangling in his hair, touching his face. He was bringing her closer and she could feel her thighs trembling, tensing under his ministrations, her breath coming in rapid shallow pants as lights began to dance behind her eyes.

Her own words came back to her.

_We’re in this together._

Her heart hammering now, her body a beat away from contracting under his kiss.

_Don’t leave him behind._

Clara clasped her hands around his face and pulled him back, quick to explain in as few words as possible lest he misinterpret.

‘Need you,’ she panted and tugged him up her body. He crawled over her, suspending his weight so that he brushed against her with the lightest of caresses but even this made her moan and whimper into his chest. He bent to kiss her, absorbing the sound, letting her taste herself on his tongue and she sought him out with her hips, legs parting wider and hands grasping at his buttocks.

The Doctor broke their kiss with a gasp and Clara felt him press into her, the tip of him just breaching her entrance. She keened against him and drove up with her hips, securing them together and drawing from him a luxurious groan, deep and resonant. For a second he held himself within her as she accommodated his size and then with slow movements pulled back and forward again into her warmth.

They couldn’t keep the pace slow for long as each clung tighter to the other and need overrode any pretense of control. Clara, already taken close by his mouth minutes before soon found herself climbing again but this time tightening around his hard cock her fingertips digging into his shoulders drawing sharp hisses from him of mixed pain and pleasure. She tilted her hips to find just the right spot, the first pulse of orgasm beginning, and suddenly his rhythm changed, became more desperate as his own conclusion drove him forward, pounding deep into her body, unable to hold back, his arms becoming tight around her and his breath hitting her neck with the hint of articulated desire. As the waves of her pleasure course through her Clara bucked under him and heard his release growl and cry into her neck as she called out in ecstasy.

With her eyes closed she did not want to break the silence but instead held him against her as his breathing slowed and stilled, dimly aware that from time to time he shuddered with the emotion that fought to claim freedom from his body. She traced soft lines over the muscles of his back and placed kisses on his neck, her cheek becoming wet with his tears.

Still she said nothing.

The minutes ticked by and finally came away from her, rolling slightly to the side but almost immediately engulfing her in his arms again as though afraid she would disappear. Clara rested her head on his chest, sleep taking her as she listened to the steady beat of his hearts.

 

XXXXXXXXX

When she woke he was already conscious, his fingers tracing slow patterns on her shoulder as she lay against him. Clara stirred and he froze, leading her to push herself up from his body and look into his face. The Doctor looked as though he had been deep in thought, and that now he was floundering back into reality.

‘Hi,’ she said quietly. His lips twitched into a slight smile.

‘Clara…’ he started.

She quickly placed her fingers over his lips. ‘I think it’s best if we don’t dissect,’ she said and then immediately regretted her words as a look of utter rejection crossed his face before he caught it and rebuilt his walls.

‘Oh… no… of course,’ he said, his hand falling away from her shoulder. Her eyes widened.

‘No… I don’t mean… I mean it was good, it was great… we just don’t need to have the… how did you term it? ‘Awkward conversation about feelings,’ it’s ok…’

‘We don’t?’

‘No… I know you find that hard and well… there’s no rush, there’s no need to…’

‘Maybe I want to?’ he said. Clara looked at him.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he echoed.

‘Um…’

They watched each other. Clara’s mouth went dry.

‘The last time we had a talk about feelings,’ the Doctor said clearly struggling with the whole theme, ‘You poured your heart out and then told me off for replying with ‘oh.’’

Clara swallowed, ‘You… want to pour your heart out?’

‘Not really, not very me,’ he replied honestly, running a hand through his hair distractedly. ‘But we do need to acknowledge what happened. _Why_ it happened,’ she nodded, ‘And… if we want it to happen again,’ he added hesitantly.

She managed another nod.

‘So I’m just going to say this, and put it out there and make of it what you will, because I won’t be ‘dissecting’ as you put it, or _regularly_ discussing feelings, because well…’ he trailed off and then took a breath.

‘You were right,’ he said, ‘about how miserable the last few months were, and I‘m sorry you went through that alone, and that I added to it.’

‘You didn’t mean to…’

He shushed her.

‘Please…’ he said, ‘Let me finish. ‘I added to it, I didn’t mean to but then I never do, good intentions don’t always make up for mistakes,’ he lifted a hand to her hair and slowly combed through it with his fingers, his gaze locked with hers. Something within him seemed to shift gear and as she watched it was as though a mask fell from him, revealing the man she had always known lay beneath his new stern exterior. She thought back to the moment in the console room during the storm, before the lights had gone, when she had seen something beautiful and vulnerable within him just for a moment. Now here it was again, but unwavering this time, hers alone if she chose to take it.

‘I make mistakes, Clara, and plenty of them, and quite often when I try to make up for them I dig myself in deeper. And my latest, well in retrospect my latest mistake was so obvious and so unnecessary for both of us. Clara, your echoes have been stopping me from making mistakes for centuries…. But I wouldn’t let you close enough to do the same.’

‘You were trying to keep me safe, physically, emotionally…’ she started and he silenced her with a lift of his eyebrows.

‘Yes well, I’m particularly hopeless at that,’ he smirked and she smiled back.

‘My choices, remember,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he sighed, ‘Your choices… So make your choice Clara.’

‘What are my options?’

He looked at her with that naked gaze and gently touched her cheek. ‘I think you know.’

Clara looked back at him and leaned into his touch a little. She felt the heat of their combined bodies under her and the heave of his chest as he breathed, waiting for her reply. His heartbeats thudded under her too, his free arm curled around her back. He felt solid and whole, the scent of him filled her senses and she knew that in his arms last night she had been safe and warm, comforted and sated. She felt the tingle of nerves and excitement and arousal pooling again in her body and tiny sparks of desire triggered by his fingertips.

There was no choice. She had made her choice long ago.

Clara leaned forward and kissed him, pulling back to look deep into his eyes.

The eyes of the Oncoming Storm, where both of them would find peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
